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.
The fact is, 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
and about the eve of the day.
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 both 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 didn't expect it.
He knew what our limits were and he also hoped
that Italy was perhaps a little different from 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 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. Or rather, how do they depart?
Because, in a way, they leave well informed.
Yes and no. The problem is immediate
and that of money.
Because the White Paper of the British, a policy from maybe February
or March of 1939, allowed a total of 75,000 Jews
to enter Palestine for five years.
But to qualify, 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 had also thought
of Latin America.
But the idea of going to Palestine was because it was nearby.
He also hoped his parents could join him.
In any case, the issue of money was really
a huge problem because they didn't have money.
So, thanks to the lawyer Gianni Morandi, who was the owner of the firm
where my mom worked, they went to Zurich for their honeymoon.
Then they went to Lugano to gather clients for the lawyer
to put towards this large sum.
I still remember two leather bags with thousands of stars inside.
They were gold stars.
Okay, at this point, they reach Palestine. The State of Israel still didn't exist.
There wasn't any money to protect them. Therefore, they had to start from scratch?
Yes, and so, they started all over again from January to April 1, 1939.
They arrived in Jaffa on April 6, 1939.
Yes, because by 1922 the British controlled Palestine.
There were Palestinian Arabs.
The Jewish Palestinians were organized by the Yishuv, who were more concerned
with the kibbutz and wanted to dedicate themselves
to agriculture, etc.
But the harm, the political one, was directed by the Arab agency.
The Arab agency was, well, I will give you an example.
Those who arrived in Tel Aviv on April 7th,
were in school learning modern Hebrew twenty days after arriving,
because there were various Jews in Tel Aviv from every part of Europe.
And so, it was necessary to learn this common language.
Therefore, there was some organization, but there were a lot of problems.
In any case, where I mentally find... - Ah, yes.
...this small amount of protection. However, they had to start...
They had to restart. - ...from scratch.
On the other hand, however, there were also a lot of comforts
that were left behind by the fact of having to abandon...
- Yes. ...Italy.
Having to leave Italy was strenuous. - Yes.
In regard to this, I would also read an excerpt
from the letters that may have been donated to the archive,
diaries in which Hector specifies what he was feeling shortly after the time
at which he abandoned Italy.
We will read from this excerpt: "When I left Italy four months ago,
"feeling more disgusted by the burden of having to leave the country
"than for the imminent danger, many of my colleagues
"and friends were quick to express to me their discontent
"about what was happening.
"Through their conversations, I felt they knew what sympathy meant
"and they only ended up withdrawing me.
"They were whispered in room conversations solely because they knew me
"and thought highly of me.
"For many, being an example against the persecution of Jews not being born
"in Italy, could also be considered fair because it is understood that they came
"to the country to make a fortune by going behind other's backs.
"They had some skilled political views.
"The fascist government's right to persecute people that it had let into
"the country was generally recognized."
Okay, so Hector felt betrayed by Italy?
Without a doubt.
As I was saying prior, also because my father was from Trieste.
From his father, my grandfather, he had also received an irredentist
and nationalist education.
Trieste... - Of course.
...had always been divided between people from Trieste
instead of irredentists, those who love Italy, Italian culture,
Italian language, like my grandfather and the Slovenians.
He had received this education, and so he was an irredentist nationalist.
Additionally, he was a genius official, and so he felt like an Italian.
He loved Italy and he felt betrayed by this terrible law.
In addition, in Hector's letters, in this text, it also highlights
a responsibility by the Italian people themselves
for that which is happening.
He writes: "The political maturity
"of the Italian people is apparently that of government rule
"that it has and that it deserves."
There is a precise responsibility by the people.
Well, the problem of the Italian people... (Laughter)
is living, yes, is like saying...
living today like yesterday.
In other words, the lack of personal responsibility
and...not this...
in this way...y..., accepting anything, a leader or a guide,
that which has an...an...uglier appearance, if you will.
And that...Trieste, not coincidentally Mussolini
and September 18, 1938, where they were
at the Unity of Italy Square to present the Racial Laws
not only because of the nationalism that was there,
but because Trieste was a very multiethnic, multicultural city.
There were more than two centuries in which ethnic groups were diverse.
They coexisted.
But at the very moment in which Mussolini was harsh towards Jews,
who, I repeat, were profound Italians and felt as such, and had also fought
for Italy during the First World War, at the point, everyone was inclined
to accept the rule of fascism.
We return to Hector and Adelina, who, because of their decisions,
leave the Second World War behind, in which the persecution of Jews
and the holocaust is about to start.
They leave behind the errors of war, however, like I said, they face a life
that is not easy.
Like we said, Adelina was a lawyer with a great career.
She finds herself having to start her work up again.
Yes, because the main difficulty was a work shortage.
There was an excess of workers (Laughter)
from Tel Aviv.
And then, there were few jobs or they were completely insecure.
Another big problem was a housing shortage.
So much so that my parents were forced to live with a family in an apartment,
with a kind of Polish family.
And so the difficulty was, above all, the work shortage.
Also because the two small bags of two thousand stars were not
to be touched at all. My father was not flexible.
And so then my mom, in other words, my mom, as long as my father remained
in Tel Aviv until August 23, 1944, when he then went to work
at the British oil refinery... yes... No, he also had my mom
because then he had had my sister first and then I was born in 1942.
So then when my father left, he felt the obligation to work
to support the family also because he liked the idea
of having money... (Laughter)
to freely spend.
As mentioned, your mother was free... - Yes, free.
in Palestine. - Yes.
Your father, on the other hand, had to move abroad to Persia
because meanwhile he found work with an oil company.
So two lovers who find themselves far apart in a foreign land,
and the only point of contact between these two people becomes
the writing, the letters that will then become so important
for documentation, for their memories. - Yes.
In fact, if my father accepts this two year contract
with this Iranian company, from Abadan and in Persia,
he would do his work as an industrial chemist
in this precise military zone.
He certainly separated from, he left his wife, his children,
in Tel Aviv. Then, although very tired,
every evening my mom wrote and reported what had happened
during her workday, because she had found work
with a company that was part of the Tel Aviv pharmaceutical industry.
After then being fired, she went into a...into a house to iron...
So, she could do anything. And so she reported with great ability,
descriptive, careful about everything that went on during the day.
Rather, my father sometimes wrote letters with in depth description.
He explained to her a bit about his duty, weather problems because it was very hot,
relationships with the British, that local population that was
in truly devastating conditions. Okay so they were letters that,
among other things... If you permit me... - Sure.
a digression... Things one absolutely knew but I didn't even know
the letters existed.
Then perhaps we can also elaborate on how they were found.
Then also about how the decision to publish them came about.
Let's go back. We had said that while Hector
and Adelina were in Palestine, their children were born.
Yes, my sister... - You were born
and your sister Ana was born.
It is fitting that the future of these two children is often focused
on in these letters that Hector and Adelina exchange.
I would like to read another particularly significant passage
that is again written by Hector in Abadan in February 23, 1945:
"If on one hand, the war tends to be nearing its end, on the other,
"for us, the situation in Palestine is taking a favorable turn.
"These days, I am overthinking and continuously thinking
"about the problem and worried, not so much about our personal future,
"but the future of our children. I feel irresistibly carried towards
"a solution that, although never once explored,
"today seems inevitable to me. Perhaps in a year's time we will find
"the need to have to return to Italy. Then they will return
"to being one hundred percent Italians."
Probably if your father could have chosen, he would have never...ah...wanted
to return to Italy.
Yes, I would have wanted to also. Rather no, because of having been betrayed
by Italy, my father deeply desired to return to Italy.
Apart from the experience in Abadan, also because life in Palestine was truly
very hard, very difficult because of the work problem, the problem
of the...of the...the lack of apartments. However, we can't forget
that the attention, the attention by the Palestinian Arabs and the British
made life particularly difficult.
If we could return back in time... - Yes.
In September 1940, Tel Aviv was bombed by Italian aircrafts,