After a clumsy attempt to transfer entire families to the lands of the Reich for agricultural work, on 19 February 1944 the prefect Federico Menna ordered all the municipal heads, the podestà, and prefectural commissioners of the province of Rovigo to submit by 10 March the lists of those who could be drafted into work in Germany, without distinction between men and women. The intention was to leverage the traditional industriousness of the Polesine people to make recruitment as voluntary as possible, but given the decidedly insufficient response, all citizens, regardless of social status, were conscripted. “Workers” was intended as…
