On 4 August 1944, at 10 p.m., on the ramparts of the Walls of Lucca at Porta Elisa, the young priest Don Aldo Mei is shot by a platoon of the Wehrmacht and buried in the grave he was forced to dig himself.

The next day, having obtained permission from the German Command, at about 10.00 a.m. the exhumed body was moved to the Barbantini sisters in Lucca in Via Elisa.

Don Aldo Mei is rounded up by the Germans on 2 August and taken to the Pia Casa di Beneficienza in Lucca. Here, after a summary trial, he was sentenced to death. The efforts of the archbishop of Lucca, Monsignor Torrini, to snatch the young priest from the German rage were to no avail.

On 30 July 1977, the Ministry of Defence and the President of the Republic awarded Don Aldo Mei the silver medal for military valour (in memoriam).