guilty of murder and sentenced them for life while the other two received a jail sentence of three years as accessories in the crime. The case was taken to Germany's high court, the Bundesgerichtshof, which ruled that, while not overturning the guilty verdict, that the perpetrators had to be freed on a technicality. As the crime had been committed in 1943 and was actually investigated by the division already back then, also without a conclusion, the usual start date for the statute of limitations for Nazi crimes, the date of the German surrender in 1945, did not apply, meaning the 1943 massacre's statute of limitations had been expired. This verdict caused much frustration in Germany with a younger generation of state prosecutors who were actually interested in prosecuting Nazi crimes and their perpetrators. For the murder of the Ovazza family, Austrian SS-Obersturmführer Gottfried Meir was charged in 1954 in Klagenfurt but found not guilty. He was however convicted in absentia by a military court in Turin in 1955 and sentenced for life but never extradited. In popular culture The events and massacre at Hotel Meina were made into a movie in 2007. The movie sparked controversy as it deviated from the book source of the story, written by Marco Nozza, and also from the real events. It was accused for portraying the Germans in a positive light. Becky Behar Ottolenghi, daughter of the hotel owner and an eyewitness to the events, thirteen years old at the time, published her memory of the events in a book titled The Forgotten Massacre. References Bibliography External links Massacres in the Italian Social Republic Military history of Italy during World War II September 1943 events October 1943 events History of Piedmont Italy 1943 murders in Italy 20th-century mass murder in Italy Massacres in 1943