​​At the end of September 1944, the German soldiers stationed in Savignano left and were replaced by units from the 2nd Battalion of the 36th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment, part of the 16th Division ‘Reichsführer-SS’.

There were nine Italian Organisation Todt (OT) workers in the area, who had previously been rounded up between Grizzana and Vergato. They were working on building military fortifications towards Pian di Casale for the OT, the civil and military engineering organisation of Nazi Germany. Unaware of the change in command, the workers set off on 30 September to reach the German headquarters and receive their pay. However, upon arriving in Palazzina, they were stopped, interrogated and escorted to the military headquarters at Rocchetta Mattei. Here, after further questioning, they were given a safe-conduct and then escorted back towards Savignano.

However, when they reached the vicinity of Ca’ Boschetti, they were stopped and ordered to dig their own graves. Edoardo Nanni attempted to escape but was recaptured and beaten. In the late afternoon, after being made to hand over their personal belongings, the prisoners were shot and hastily buried in some scrubland near the Bologna-Porretta railway line. One of the nine, Alfonso Bruni, was in fact merely wounded and had fainted. He survived and once he had regained consciousness took refuge in a nearby farmhouse.

The following day, in the same area, Dr Enea Macentelli, a partisan of the 63rd Bolero Brigade and the local doctor in Grizzana, was also killed for failing to comply with the German order to keep out of the way.

The victims are commemorated by a memorial plaque in Savignano and a monument in Riola.