Prison is not punishment enough. Collective violence against prisoners in civil wars. The cases of Bilbao and Schio

This article proposes a comparative analysis of two episodes of collective violence against prisoners in the Italian and Spanish civil wars. Both cases, one in the Veneto town of Schio and the other in the Biscayan capital of Bilbao, can be presented as paradigmatic examples of a form of violence, the assaults and sacas of detention centres, which accounted for a large part of the murders that occurred in the rearguards of both civil conflicts. Through a comparative approach, the author aims to determine and analyse the mechanisms of production and reproduction of violence that operated in this violent typology. Thus, the essay highlights the importance of the broader context of civil war, the links of microand macro-solidarity underlying these episodes, and the local communities’ demand for reparation and justice. Moreover, it takes into account the ways in which these communities represented the protagonists of the assaults and how they, in turn, defined themselves.

Keywords: Spanish civil war, Schio massacre, Italian civil war, asaltos del 4 de enero (assaults of January 4 in Bilbao), restorative violence

Iñaki Fernández Redondo, La prigione non è una punizione sufficiente. Violenza collettiva contro i prigionieri nelle guerre civili: i casi di Bilbao e Schio in "ITALIA CONTEMPORANEA" 307/2025, pp 1-25, DOI: 10.3280/IC2024-17095