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 troubled
than 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 was
was a difficult decision to make.
It was a difficult decision,
but one that will save their lives.
Yes, Ettore Finzi, my father,
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, in July 1938,
when the Race Manifesto was published,
he didn't expect it.
He knew what the contents were about,
although he hoped
that Italy would be
a little 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 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 way,
they leave informed.
Yes and no.
The problem is immediate
and that of money.
Because the White Paper of the British,
from perhaps February
or March of 1939,
had mandated a total
of 75,000 Jews
that could 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 a large sum
of money from the lawyer's clients.
And I still remember two leather bags
with thousands of 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 Jewish agency.
The Jewish agency was, well,
I'll give you an example.
Okay,
so they arrived in Tel Aviv
on April 7th.
Twenty days later they were
in school learning modern Hebrew,
because there were various Jews
in Tel Aviv
from every part of Europe.
So it was necessary
to learn this common language.
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,
"only because they knew me
and they valued 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."
So Ettore felt betrayed by Italy?
Without a doubt.
Also because, as I was saying prior,
my father was from Trieste.
From his father, my grandfather,
he has also received an irredentist
and nationalist upbringing.
Trieste had always been divided
between people from Trieste, Austria...
Let's say Austriacanti.
Rather than 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 this...
Well yes, accepting anything,
like a leader or a guide,
that which is of
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 are 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.
Then my mom,
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 need
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 Ettore, 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 foreign lands,
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, my father accepted
this two year contract
with this Iranian company.
He was in Abadan in Persia.
And indeed it was a military zone.
He did 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 any job.
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 know
the letters even 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,
"the situation in Palestine
is taking a favorable turn for us.
"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 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
of 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.
In other words,
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,
there continuously remained
the hope of returning to Italy.
And how did Adelina live
with the hope of returning?
I will read another significant passage:
"I will never ask who is taking that step.
Here I undoubtedly feel 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 suggested
to my mom the idea
of converting us to Catholicism,
because we were Jews.
- (Interviewer) Of course.
Then, meanwhile,
the Finzi
of 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 lineage,
which was 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...
- (Interviewer) 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,
when it was known what was happening
in Europe with the extermination camps
or some other difficult situation,
they absolutely didn't know
where my paternal
and maternal grandparents were.
However, the news arrived,
even betraying the origin and...
(Interviewer) It was quite heavy.
- Yes, very heavy.
Speaking of, 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 of the British.
The news arrived quite detailed.
I don't want to forget
that there was 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 offered very detailed news
of what was happening.
So, they knew about everything
that was coming
to Italy and Europe.
The concerns were precisely
that my paternal grandparents,
who later died in Auschwitz,
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 either.
She knew that her parents were in hiding.
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 at least some details
in the letters,
because they were deleted
by the person that did the changes.
So, dad needed to be attentive,
because they were altered by the British.
They were altered by the Persians.
(Laughter)
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.
Being far
from what was happening in Europe.
Far from the war.
For a moment, Adelina perhaps had hoped,
from what Ledi writes,
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.
Having high hopes is often the last idea.
They did have hope.
They hadn't had detailed news,
even though then my dad's brother,
who was...
He was a doctor who lived in Bologna,
but in the mountain area
of Monghidoro and Loiano.
He knew
that his parents had been arrested,
that they had been deported.
However, he had not communicated anything.
Even though assuming,
that they went to Auschwitz,
there could have always been
the hope of their return
Therefore, they hoped.
Unfortunately, however,
the terrible news was that they arrived.
They also 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 about it."
It's terrible.
Unfortunately, they were effects
of what 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 dad had
the idea of going to Palestine,
everyone criticized him;
friends, parents, brothers, the sister,
because they said:
"You are 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, if you allow me...
(Interviewer) Sure.
But before the communication
about the deaths of his parents,
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
because the Red Army was coming.
Since they didn't want them to see
a mass of prisoners in Auschwitz,
they were moved.
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 helped him
with a job at his work in Sansepolcro.
He spoke with Mr. Marco Vittoni,
who said:
"I am willing to hire your brother
because he is a chemist.
Also, I want a change
for the company, etc."
But when we arrived in Italy in May 1946,
with a short stop in Bologna
and then to Parma
with my maternal grandparents,
and then to Sansepolcro precisely
in November of 1946,
we had absolutely nothing.
And there was nothing...
(Laughter)
(Interviewer) 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 dad rented
a furnished apartment
in Saint Claire Square
in which the conditions were really...
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.
were against the idea
of the Racial Laws.
No, absolutely not.
Other than it being something
that is part of our DNA,
resentment is useless.
I was taught
that it's best to let things go,
move forward,
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.
(Interviewer talking)
- Yes.
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,
the epistolary
of Ettore Finzi and Adelina 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 and in August,
I was ready to let it go.
By chance, I found a bag in his office,
a leather one with straps
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 was his diary.
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:
"Listen,
"there are 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...
- (Interviewer) 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 any references.
Then I gradually began
to transcribe these letters.
I can't tell you how I did so,
because they were written...
(Interviewer) No doubt handwritten.
Yes, handwritten with a fountain pen,
on tissue paper,
because back then it was airmail paper.
In short, 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 copy or, in other words,
the full version
of this diary, of these letters...
Just to be certain...
I was already collaborating
with the diary archives
for some time for my own research
in the fields of Rinisce, Paganini, etc.
Just to be certain,
I went to Pieve Santo Stefano
and I had the volume in hand.
It was Cristina Cangi, who you will meet.
And she asked me:
"What is that professor"?
"It's work that I did".
- "Why don't you submit it for the award"?
I say I really had not thought
about wanting to publish it.
Then I start reading
some very 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.
It's possible
to read this publication
that is titled Transparenti,
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 similar,
by certain passages and elements,
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 was made possible
in collaboration
with The Archives of Pieve Santo Stefano.
I naturally thank The Archives.
Specifically,
the archives
for this episode were made available
by Nadia Frulli.
Thank you to all of you
for watching the program.