Former prisoners of the Germans from 1940 to 1943 visited Sulmona in the hope to find someone of the families that helped them, but all in vain. Some time ago a luckier research uncovered the courage of the Silvestri family from Cantone, near Introdacqua, who saved the life to Jack Fox, and kept him in hiding, to help him finally get through the enemy lines in 1944. Jack Fox wrote a book on his experience, "Spaghetti e filo spinato", recently translated into Italian by the students of a school in Sulmona.

Colonnella against the death penalty to Rocco Derek Barnabei, a descendant of Serafino Bernabei, born in 1886 and emigrated to America in the early 20th century. The municipality emphasizes the cruelty and uselessness of the death penalty in itself.

The Mayor of Isola proposed the establishment of a peace prize in the name of Pope Benedetto XV, who canonized St Gabriel and played a powerful role in favour of peace during the First World War.