People from Here
Welcome to People from Here.
What we want to tell you today is the story of two young people,
of two young people with high hopes.
There is Adelina, a brilliant lawyer who works
at a prestigious legal firm in Milan.
Then there is Hector, an industrial chemist.
The future can only smile at Adelina and Hector.
Actually, their future will be more turbulent
than they could have ever imagined.
As a matter of fact, in 1938 Hector and Adelina are Jewish.
On September 18th, in the town of Trieste,
Benito Mussolini announced Racial Laws for the first time,
for the defense of the race.
The world of those two young people suddenly collapses under their feet.
We will tell this story of Hector and Adelina
about the eve of the day by memory.
We will tell it with the son of Hector and Adelina, Daniele Finzi,
who in 2011, decided to donate his parents letters and documents
to The Archives of Pieve Santo Stefano.
Shortly we will also discuss why this choice was made.
I would like to start precisely with September 1938,
with Mussolini's announcement of the laws for the defense of the race.
Hector and Adelina immediately started to understand that there was no future
for them in that country. To leave their country
was a difficult decision, but one that will save their lives.
Yes, my father Hector Finzi had very deep historical knowledge.
Also because he knew German very well.
He had two aunts, aunt Genie and aunt Lazagudita Gentiluomo,
who lived in Vienna.
He had followed all the Nazi antisemitism up to March 1938.
So when the race manifesto was published in July 1938,
he couldn't expect it.
He knew what our limits were and he also hoped
that Italy was perhaps a little bit different than Germany.
And my father, more than my mother, made quick and immediate decisions.
He was also very intuitive. He had known my mom
only a few month in 1938. It was love at first sight
and precisely because of the race manifesto, the Racial Laws,
they decided to get married. They were married in Milan
on December 1, 1938.
In 1938. We arrive in 1939. - Yes.
A manifest date for many. - Yes.
Very unjust, but there is a turning point. - There is a turning point.
Hector and Adelina decide to leave. Rather how do they depart?
Because, in a way, they leave inquired.
Yes and no. So the problem is immediate
and that of money because of English with the white book,
maybe in February or March of 1939. They set up a number of 75,000 Jews
that could go to Palestine in five years.
But to enter, every person needed to have 1,000 stars.
Like we had said, they had chosen. The goal was Palestine.
The choice was not a coincidence because my father also thought
of Latin America. But the idea of going
to Palestine was because it was close. He also hoped his parents could join him.