The Italian War Memorial at El Alamein

The Italian war memorial is a cemetery, museum, and memorial to the Italian soldiers who fought at the two Battles of El Alamein in World War II. Located at the site of the battle in Egypt, the memorial is the largest of the various national memorials at El Alamein. The main structure is a white marble tower built on Tel el-Eisa (Hill of Jesus) near the coast, a site of heavy fighting during the battle.

Paolo Caccia Dominioni, who had been at the battle, was the driving force behind the construction of the memorial. Dominioni devoted his postwar life to collecting the remains of Italian dead from the battlefield and advocating for the construction of a memorial. He designed the memorial, which was constructed between 1954 and 1958 by the Italian government under his direction. An Italian cemetery had already existed at the site since 1943.

The cemetery contains several thousand graves, many marked "Ignoto" (Unknown). Some 38,000 Italian soldiers whose remains were never recovered are also honoured. Due to Dominioni's twenty years of effort, the remains of thousands of German and British soldiers (as well as Italian) were also eventually identified and received a proper burial. On 30 October 2012, a park was opened on the battle site to show visitors key points in the battle.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons