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.