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.
Deciding 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...
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...
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. A tangent here about 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 6th.
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.
They arrived in Tel Aviv on April 7th and twenty days after,
they were in school learning modern Hebrew because there were various Jews
in Tel Aviv from every part of Europe. It was necessary
to learn this common language. So, 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 in 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 about condolences
"and they ended up only 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, Austria...
Let's say Austrians.
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 was 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)
Living yes... like saying living today like yesterday.
In other words, the lack of personal responsibility
and accepting anything, like 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 the very moment in which Mussolini showed his cruelty
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 you 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,
with a Polish family in an apartment.
Above all, the main difficulty was 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...
(Interviewer Talking)
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, he would be in Abadan in Persia.
And it was indeed a military zone.
He would do his work there as an industrial chemist.
Of course, he had to detach and 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.
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,
and 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 was 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 from 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. Quite the opposite because my father,
due to having been betrayed by Italy, 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, and the problem of the lack of apartments.
However, we can't forget that the attention
from the Palestinian Arabs and the British made life 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.
I mean, one of the big problems was also food.
For example, my 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 of returning to Italy,
that country that had dismissed them, in order to guarantee
a future for you children.
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. - (Interviewer) 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 entirely Italian, 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 another 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?
Above all, how did they also 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 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. 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. 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 was 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 reactions
to 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 that 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. - (Interviewer) 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 wanted 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 held 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,
or 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 meet. 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 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.