People from Here
Welcome back 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 Ettore,
an industrial chemist.
The future can only smile
upon Adelina and Ettore.
Actually,
their future will be more turbulent
thank they could have ever imagined.
In fact,
in 1938 Ettore and Adelina are Jewish.
On September 18th,
from the balcony of Trieste's town hall,
Benito Mussolini announced
for the first time the Racial Laws
for the defense of the race.
The world of those two young people
suddenly collapses under their feet.
We will tell this story
about Ettore and Adelina
on the eve of the day.
We will tell it with the son
of Ettore 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.
Now I would like to start
with September 1938,
with Mussolini's announcement
of the laws for the defense of the race.
Ettore and Adelina immediately started
to understand that there wasn't
a future for them in that country.
To leave their country was
a difficult decision,
but one that will save their lives.
Yes, my father Ettore Finzi was
very knowledgable about history.
Also because he knew German very well.
He had two aunts, aunt Genie
and aunt Lazigudita 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 the contents were about
and he also hoped that Italy would be
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 months,
and he returns
to these months in April 1938.
It was love at first sight
and because of the Race Manifesto
and the Racial Laws,
they decided to get married.
They were married in Milan
on December 1, 1938.
In 1938. We arrive in 1939.
- Yes.
An ominous date for many.
- Yes.
Very unjust, but there is a turning point.
- There is a turning point.
Ettore and Adelina decide to leave.
Or rather, how do they depart?
Because, in a sense,
they leave 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.
However, to qualify to enter,
every person needed to have 1,000 stars.
Because, like we said, they had chosen.
- To go to Palestine.
The goal was Palestine.
- Yes.
The choice was not a coincidence,
because my father had also thought
about Latin America.
But the idea of going
to Palestine was because it was nearby.
He was from Trieste so it was close.
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 any.
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.
It was to put towards this large sum.
And I still remember two leather bags
with thousands of little stars inside.
They were gold little stars.
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 Haifa on April 6, 1939.
Yes, because as of 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 foundation, the political one,
was led by the Arab agency.
The Arab agency was, well,
I'll give you an example.
Those who arrived in Tel Aviv
on April 7th were in school learning
modern Hebrew twenty days after,
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...
Yes, they had to restart.
- from scratch.
On the other hand, however,
there was a lot of bitterness
that was left behind by the fact
of having to abandon...
Yes.
- Italy.
Having to leave Italy was stressful.
- Yes.
In regard to this,
I will also read an excerpt
from the letters
that have been donated to the archive,
diaries in which Ettore specifically tells
about what he was feeling shortly after
the time at which he abandoned Italy.
We will read 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 making me withdraw.
"They were whispered 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 expert political views.
"The Fascist government's right
to persecute people that it had let into
"the country was generally recognized."
Okay, so Ettore 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 upbringing.
Trieste has always been divided
between people from Trieste
and irredentists,
those who love Italy, Italian culture,
Italian language,
like my grandfather and the Slovenians.
He had received this upbringing,
and so he was an irredentist nationalist.
Additionally, he was a genius official,
and he felt like an Italian.
He loved Italy
and he felt betrayed by this terrible law.
In addition, in Ettore's letters,
in this text, it also highlights
a responsibility
by the Italian people themselves
for what 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 Italian people's problem...
(Laughter)
is living,
like saying living today like yesterday.
In other words,
the lack of personal responsibility
and accepting anything,
a leader or a guide,
that which has
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 that very moment
in which Mussolini was cruel towards Jews,
who, I repeat, were real Italians,
and felt as such, and had also fought
for Italy during the First World War.
At the point, everyone was inclined
to accept Fascist rule.
We return to Ettore 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 the 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 Polish family.
The difficulty was then, above all,
the work shortage.
Also because the two bags
of the two thousand stars were not
to be touched at all.
My father was not flexible.
My mom then, as long as my father remained
in Tel Aviv until August 23, 1944,
when he went to work
at the British oil refinery...
No, he was also with my mom
because they then had my sister first
and then I was born in 1942.
So when my father left,
he felt the obligation to work
to support the family.
He also liked the idea
of having money 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 in Persia,
he would do his work
as an industrial chemist
in this precise military zone.
Of course, he had to detach,
he had to leave 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 to work at a house to iron.
So, she could do anything.
And she reported with great ability,
descriptive, careful about everything
that went on during the day.
Rather, my father sometimes wrote letters
with extensive description.
He explained to her a bit about his duty,
weather problems because it was very hot,
relationships with the British,
with the local population that was
in truly devastating conditions.
They were letters that,
among other things...
If you permit me a tangent.
They were 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 Ettore
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 Ettore
and Adelina exchange.
I would like to read another
particularly significant passage
that is again written by Ettore
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 taken 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 become
"one hundred percent Italians."
Probably if your father could have chosen,
he would have never wanted
to return to Italy.
Yes, I would not 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 lack of apartments.
However, we can't forget
that the attention
from 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 planes, right?
Yes.
- They bombed Tel Aviv and it seems
like there were one hundred
and fifty two deaths.
So life was very hard.
Another tangent.
In other words,
one of the big problems was also food.
For example, myself sister and I went
to the gan, which was like kindergarten.
To help you understand, at lunch they used
to give us half an egg to eat.
On the other hand,
while facing this situation,
the hope of returning
to Italy continuously remained.
And how did Adelina live
with the hope of returning?
I will read another significant passage:
"I will never ask those taking that step.
"Here I feel undoubtedly hesitant
by instinct and by force of tradition.
"And I won't ever ask myself,
not only out of obedience,
"but because more than anything else,
I am concerned
"about doing everything possible
for the future of our children."
It's like saying,
she was also willing to do her part.
There was a sense of pride
to return to Italy,
that country that had dismissed them,
in order to guarantee
a future for you children.
Then here there is a...
(Laughter)
There are many letters.
In any case, when my father says
that they will become
one hundred percent Italians,
he also proposes to my mom
the idea of converting to Catholicism,
because we were Jews.
- Of course.
Meanwhile, the Finzi from Trieste were
almost completely assimilated.
That is to say,
they went to the temple twice a year.
Instead, my mom was
from a much more orthodox family,
They came from the Parrdo,
a very important Iberian family.
Parrdo which used to be Prado.
They came from Spain after the expulsion.
So my father proposes this idea
of converting to Catholicism
in order for his children...
- To become...
Yes, to become complete Italians,
even as a religion.
However my mom... Here it says
that she was reluctant.
Not because she was personally orthodox.
But because, in that moment when
it was known what was happening
in Europe, the extermination camps
or also a difficult situation,
they absolutely didn't know
where my paternal
and maternal grandparents were.
Then, however, the news arrived
even betraying the origin and...
It was quite heavy.
- Yes, very heavy.
By the way, how did the news
about the war arrive meanwhile
it continued in Europe?
Was there just an awareness
of what was happening?
Was there an awareness
of the existence
of the extermination camps?
Yes.
- Above all, how did they live
with these dual feelings?
Because, on the one hand,
there was this hope
of being able to return one day
to a normal life in Italy.
On the other hand, however,
there was a lot of fear
also for the fate of loved ones.
They knew everything.
Both about the Jewish agency
and the British.
The news arrived quite detailed.
I don't want to forget a noteworthy group
of young Jews that were part
of the Jewish brigade.
They fought alongside the British
and they also fought in Italy,
then in all of Europe.
They were the ones who said
that they gave very detailed news
of what was happening.
So, they knew about everything
that was coming to Italy and Europe.
The concerns were precisely
about my paternal grandparents,
those who later died in Auschwitz,
that they didn't...
The last official news was transmitted
by a type of telegram of the Red Cross
in July of 1943.
Then my father knew absolutely nothing.
My mom didn't know.
She knew that her parents were hidden.
Her brother was in Switzerland.
But they had absolutely no news.
They couldn't say or write anything
because the mail was altered.
Outgoing and incoming mail was altered.
I found that at least some details
in the letters had been deleted precisely
by the person that did the alterations.
So, my father needed to be careful
because they were altered by the British.
They were altered by the Persians.
Then they were altered on arrival
in Palestine.
So, they were...
In this situation,
they also found themselves in a state
of uncertainty being far from Europe,
far from what was happening in Europe,
far from the war.
For a moment, Adelina perhaps had hoped
that her family would have an advantage
over the immense tragedy
that afflicted the Jews of Europe,
that they would all find themselves
reunited upon their return.
There was almost this illusion, this hope.
Hope is often the last idea.
Hence, there was hope.
They didn't have detailed news.
My father's brother was a doctor
who lived in Bologna
in the mountains of Monghidoro.
He knew
that his parents had been arrested,
that they had been deported.
However, he had not communicated anything.
Even though hypothetically they went
to Auschwitz, there could have always been
the hope of returning.
Therefore, they hoped.
Unfortunately, however,
the terrible news is that they arrived.
They arrived in Palestine while
the war by now...
It was over.
- By now it was over.
And like you said,
the terrible news arrived by mail.
News so terrible
that Adelina cannot even transcribe them
in a letter to Ettore.
She writes:
"My dear, unfortunately,
the dreary news has arrived.
"I am sending you the letter
because I don't have the courage
"to write to you
about it with my own pen."
It's terrible.
Unfortunately, they were effects
of what had just happened
in the war in Europe.
In a communication letter separate
from the international cross.
Maybe in that exact moment Ettore
and Adelina understood
what they had escaped from?
Yes without a doubt.
I will also tell you
that when my father had
the idea of going to Palestine,
everyone criticized him;
friends, parents, brothers, the sister,
because they said
he was always pessimistic.
He would rather have wanted them all
to also come with him.
However, he expected it, also because
the war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945.
The news gets to him in August.
Given that months go by
where he doesn't receive positive news,
he feared for the lives of his parents.
Excuse me but if you permit me.
- Of course.
But before the communication
about the deaths of his parents,
he received communication from Sweden
that said his sister was saved.
Then my aunt Yolanda Clara was part
of that group of prisoners
that were moved
from Auschwitz in December 1944.
They were moved west
so as not to leave a mass
of prisoners in Auschwitz,
because the Red Army was coming.
She was then liberated
in the north of Ravensbrück in April 1945.
She was then transferred
to Sweden to recover.
We have said that at this point,
the war had ended and Ettore and Adelina
along with their children decide
to return to Italy.
How difficult was it once again to start
from scratch because they actually had
to start from scratch.
Ah yes.
It was difficult.
My father's brother,
who had worked in Sansepolcro,
helped him get a job at his work.
He spoke with Mr. Marco Vittoni
and he said he was quite willing
to hire his brother
because he was a chemist.
Mr. Vittoni wanted a change of pace
for his company.
But when we arrived in Italy in May 1946,
with a short stop in Bologna
and then to Parma at the home
of my maternal grandparents,
and then to Sansepolcro precisely
in November of 1946,
we had absolutely nothing.
And there was nothing...
(Laughter)
Without a doubt, a country in devastation.
- Yes, a country in devastation.
I remember the path with holes.
I remember the Tower of Berta Square
in a pile of ruins.
- The Tower of Berta Square was destroyed.
I repeat, it was also a problem to eat.
I remember my father rented
a furnished apartment
in Saint Claire Square
in which the conditions were...
- Insecure.
Very, very insecure.
However, they were young
and they wanted to start over.
There was my sister and myself.
So, they desired to put a painful time
of their lives behind them and start over.
You have previously already answered
that there was resentment towards
that country that made them escape
and also towards those friends
that...
- No.
had put down the idea of the...
- No, absolutely not.
Other than it being something
that is part of our DNA.
Resentment is useless.
It's best to move forward,
to have the will to start again
and to overcome difficulties.
Not resentment.
I never heard my father
nor my mother speak ill of Italians.
Yes, it was upsetting to have lost.
To having lost parents.
To having lost years of work.
My mom could not return to work
in Milan because there was no way
to find a home.
In 2011, Ettore Finzi's
and Adelina's epistolary was donated
to the Pieve diary archives.
It's awarded the Premio Pieve.
First and foremost, how were you able
to find these letters again,
because they were made public
by the decision of donating them.
My father died on June 18, 2002.
He lived in an apartment in Parma.
In August I was ready to let go of it.
By chance, I found a bag in his office,
a leather one that holds documents.
There were letters inside
this document holder.
And there were two notebooks,
black ones with a red border
that were used in the past,
and inside were his diaries.
I understood right away
because I have done historical research
for many years, so I understood
it was something interesting.
I found it strange
that my father never told me anything,
because he didn't say to me
that there were letters and diaries.
And so I took them all to my house,
to my office and I left them there
for a year, a year and a half.
Then I slowly began to read them
with a bit of fear.
Because with diaries and letters...
- One will find...
always find something intimate.
Then I think in my family,
nothing would ever be talked about.
No one had ever commented,
made references.
Then I gradually began
to transcribe these letters.
I can't tell you how I did so,
because they were truly written...
- Strictly handwritten.
Yes, handwritten with a fountain pen,
on tissue paper, because back then
it was airmail paper.
It was a type of job
that strained the eyes.
In any case, I did this transcription job
of the diary, of the letters, etc.
I had the idea of publishing it.
The full version of this diary,
of these letters...
I had already collaborated
with the Diary Archives
for some time for my research.
In any case, just to be certain,
I went to Pieve Santo Stefano
and I had this volume in hand.
It was Cristina Cangi, who you will know.
She asked me:
"What is it professor?"
- "It's this work that I did."
"Why don't you submit if for the award."
I say I really had not thought
about wanting to publish it.
I start reading some interesting things
and then I submit it.
They asked me for the archive
and also for the letters,
but I wasn't going to do that.
I remember that it's possible
to read this publication
that is titled "Transparent",
in which the documentation
is precisely presented
and published by Il Mulino.
Our arrangement time has ended,
although we would like to talk for hours
about this story that is a bit,
by certain passages and elements,
similar to the story
of many other families,
also of the province of Arezzo.
Perhaps there will be a way
to talk more about it in the future.
Thank you Daniele Finzi.
Thanks to all of you
who have followed our episode,
a special episode
that has been made possible
in collaboration
with The Archives of Pieve Santo Stefano.
I naturally thank you as well.
In particular,
the archives
for this episode were made available
by Nadia Frulli.
Thank you to all of you
for watching the program.