Pensione Oltremare. Testimonianze dal processo alla banda Koch. Roma, febbraio-aprile 1944

In occupied Rome in 1944, a special police unit commanded by Pietro Koch was established. The group’s activities focused on repressing opponents of the Italian Social Republic regime and hunting down fugitive Jews. What soon became known as the “Koch gang” needed secure locations to interrogate, abuse, and torture. Due to the unscrupulousness of its leaders, the presence of outlaws, and the ferocity of its actions, the unit quickly became notorious and settled, between February and April 1944, in the Pensione Oltremare, near Termini station.
In this essay, the author, using the records from the Koch gang trial held in Milan in 1946, brings to light the testimonies of survivors or relatives of the victims.
The research work does not lack the observation of documents concerning the torturers and informers, and to complete the atmosphere in which the trial was held, the articles from the Milanese newspapers Nuovo Corriere della Sera and Corriere d’Informazione are presented.