Teresa Gullace: The Calabrian woman who became a symbol of the Italian Resistance against Nazi-fascism
April 25, 1945 is the symbolic date of Italy’s Liberation from the fascist dictatorship and the Nazi German military occupation.
Within that history there is also Teresa Gullace, a Calabrian woman killed in Rome in 1944 while trying to reach her husband, arrested by the Germans.
Teresa Gullace was born in Cittanova, Calabria, and moved to Rome with her husband Girolamo, a construction laborer. She was a working-class woman, mother of five children and pregnant with her sixth.
Like thousands of southern Italian families, they lived from the hard labor that materially sustained the capital.
On March 3, 1944, she went to the barracks on Viale Giulio Cesare, where the Nazis were holding her husband prisoner after a roundup.
Among other women demanding the release of their relatives, she tried to get closer and was killed by a German soldier.
Her death immediately became a symbol of the Roman Resistance.
The mural by artist Aladin in Piazza dei Cavalieri, 18, Rome
The story of Teresa Gullace unfolded in a Rome occupied and marked by Nazi violence and fascist collaboration.
It is a story that still reminds us what war, coercion, and dehumanization produce, but also of the role of many women in the history of Liberation.
At that time, the capital lived under military control.
Roundups and arrests were frequent and aimed at seizing workers and forced laborers for heavy, degrading, and dangerous work: building fortifications, clearing rubble, up to deportation to labor camps in Germany.
At the same time, repression targeted partisans, draft resisters, former soldiers, and real or presumed opponents.
Daily life was marked by hunger, fear, scarcity, and uncertainty.
In this context, Teresa Gullace’s act—going to look for her arrested husband—belongs to that civil resistance made of family bonds, dignity, and everyday courage.
September 10, 1943 – German troops begin the occupation of Rome
On the morning of March 3, 1944, outside the barracks on Viale Giulio Cesare, there was a true popular women’s mobilization.
Hundreds of rounded-up men were held inside, while outside a crowd of women relatives of the prisoners gathered.
Alongside them were also militants of the Women’s Defense Groups and the Roman Resistance.
The protest had been prepared by the GAP and was brought forward because it was feared that the Nazis would speed up the deportation of the men to forced labor or camps in Germany.
When Teresa was killed, the women present sustained the mobilization, challenged the soldiers, protected the militants, and continued to occupy public space.
That day, the Resistance also had the face of women who demanded their loved ones back, took the streets, and made the violence of the occupation visible.
Rome, Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945)
Her story inspired the character of Pina, played by Anna Magnani, in Roberto Rossellini’s film Rome, Open City.
Released in 1945, the film became one of the symbolic works of Italian neorealism and showed the world occupied Rome, Nazi violence, and popular Resistance.
The famous scene in which Pina runs after the German truck and is killed directly recalls the death of Teresa Gullace.
It is one of the most famous scenes in Italian cinema.
Anna Magnani’s Performance
In those years Anna Magnani often portrayed popular Roman women, far from the aristocratic or polished models of earlier cinema: this is why she was perfect for Pina.
She brought to the screen an intense, concrete, and new presence, different from the more artificial aesthetics of the Fascist era.
Through her performance, Pina became a popular symbol destined to remain in Italian memory, and Teresa Gullace thus entered the country’s collective imagination.
For more paths between Calabria, history, and the Mediterranean follow @calabria_mediterranea
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