Virginia Tonelli

She was burned alive by the fascists in the Risiera di San Sabba concentration camp, and was posthumously awarded the Gold Medal of Military Valour.

In 1937 she married Pietro Zampollo,[2] a fellow party member who went to fight in Spain in the International Brigades to support the Republic, where he was wounded, sent back to Italy and imprisoned.

In the early months of 1943, with fascism now in difficulty, the party leadership asked her to return to Castelnovo to carry out propaganda and protest actions.

On 19 September 1944, while she was transporting documents from Udine to Trieste with a colleague, Wilma Tominez Padovan, she was arrested and imprisoned by the fascists.

Actively sought, she was captured in Trieste and subjected for twenty days to atrocious, inhuman tortures in order to know the precious news in her possession.