Open-top trucks hastily loaded with some of the Florentine treasures; including this painting from the Uffizi鈥擫uca Signorelli's Crucifixion鈥攂egan arriving in the northern Italian region of Alto Adige on August 13; 1944.

German soldiers transported the uncrated paintings over hundreds of miles of poor-quality roads with little more protection than straw. Worried the art would be transported into the Reich; Italian officials desperately tried to regain control of their treasures; to no avail. The location of the German hiding places eluded the Monuments Men until the last two weeks of the war.