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Abstract:  WHY ARE THEY KILLING US? AMBIGUITES AND CONTRADICTIONS IN THE MEMORY OF BOMBARDMENTS IN ROME The paper, based on several oral history projects, discusses ambiguities and contradictions in the memory of the air raids in Rome in 1943 (partly as a metaphor of the differences between history from-the-top-down and from-the-bottom-up). Animal imagery in oral narratives indicates that one effect of being under the air raids was to feel deprived of one’s humanity. A number of narrators have trouble remembering who it was that bombed them: the fact that the damage was inflicted by the Allies rather than the Nazis makes it difficult to articulate the contradictory memory that it was the liberators that destroyed one’s home and killed one’s neighbors. The strafing of civilians in the streets and the bombing of civilian targets also complicates the memory of the Allies as liberators.