On the morning of July 26, 1944, Ca’ Giustinian (seat of the Provincial Command of the Republican National Guard, the Political Investigative Office, German liaison offices and a place of torture) was hit by a bomb attack carried out by two partisans belonging to the Venetian GAP, thus demonstrating that the Resistance was a living and active reality.
Retaliation by the Germans was immediate.
On the night of July 27, the Head of the Province Pietro Cosmin convened the Extraordinary War Tribunal and it was agreed to sentence 13 political prisoners, imprisoned in Santa Maria Maggiore, to death. The prisoners mostly came from the area of San Donà: in this way it was intended to teach a lesson to an area particularly active in the Resistance (the city of San Donà would also be endowed with the silver medal for military valor for the Resistance).
The victims were:
Basso Attilio (1922) San Donà di Piave, partisan.
Bertazzolo Stefano (1919) Carrara San Giorgio, partisan.
Biancotto Francesco (1926) San Donà di Piave, communist carpenter.
D’Andrea Ernesto (1913) Musile di Piave, partisan organizer of the resistance in Sandonatese.
Felisati Giovanni (1909) Mestre, partisan.
Gressani Angelo (1896) Ovaro (UD), partisan.
Gusso Enzo (1913) San Donà di Piave, partisan member of the Action Party.
Lavorin Gustavo (1905) Padua, partisan.
Momesso Violante (1923) Noventa di Piave, partisan.
Nardean Wenceslas (1924) Noventa di Piave, partisan.
Peruch Amedeo (1905) Musile di Piave, partisan.
Tamai Giovanni (1924) San Donà di Piave, partisan.
Tronco Giovanni (1905) San Donà di Piave, partisan.
A tombstone dedicated to them has been placed in the cemetery of San Donà.
Francesco Biancotto (who had been offered immediate freedom in exchange for a confession, which he refused) was dedicated to the Garibaldi brigade operating in Venice, protagonist of the “Beffa” of the Teatro Goldoni.
On June 3, 1947 in Fondamenta dei Cereri, in the former House of Balilla, the Boarding School “Francesco Biancotto” was instituted.
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