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.