Bartali Stands Up to Il Duce: Part 2 from "My Italian Secret"
Transcript
Speaker 1
Look at that, People live there.
I lived there.
Narrator
In June 1940, when Italy enters the war,
all foreigners are relocated to camps
spread across the country.
Italian Jews are allowed to remain in
their own homes, but more than 10,000
foreign Jews are among those sent
away.
The internees are allowed to play music,
wear their own clothing and hold
religious services in the hill town of
Campania.
The internees live in a 14th century
convent and can move about the town to
mingle with the local citizens.
Ferramonti,
built in a malaria ridden swamp in
Calabria, is the largest camp,
at times holding up to 3,000 people.
Conditions are harsh and primitive at
first, but families live together and the
children go to school.
Rabbi Ricardo Pacifichi makes regular
visits from Genoa.
Speaker 2
My grandfather was assigned
To work at the camp in Ferramonti.
Grandfather performed weddings,
Circumcisions, bar mitzvahs
It was like a small village.
Speaker 1
I wonder if I can find my father?
There's that's my mother holding me,
my father right there behind her,
at a picnic.
Wow,
you can almost feel my parents here with me.
Little did they probably even know what
would follow this.
Narrator
As the Nazis imprison and murder millions,
some refugees are still able to reach Italy.
After 1938,
More than 10,000 Italian
and foreign Jews find an
escape route,
many with the help of a relief
organization called the Delegation for
Assistance to Jewish Emigrants,
or Delasem.
The Fascist authorities cooperate to
speed up the exit of Jews to Palestine
and the US and take a percentage of the
American money that supports the rescue
efforts.
Speaker 2
Delasem operated in Italy
With the support of Jews and non-Jews
My grandfather was active in Delasem
He was aware without help from him, and others in Delasem
Many Jews escaping from Northern Europe would not have known where to turn.
Narrator
In the Summer of 1943, when America joins the Allied invasion of Sicily,
it looks like the end for fascism in Italy.
News Host
Enthusiastic Sicilians welcome the Yanks
with open arms.
For thousands of war weary Sicilians,
the coming of United Nations forces means
freedom from fascism.
Narrator
Mussolini is imprisoned and the Italians
agree to a ceasefire on September 8th,
1940.
Speaker 3
We all began to think that fascism was over
This is what I and almost all of Italy believed.
But none of it was true.
Narrator
The Germans invade to stop the Allies.
They free Mussolini and install him as
the head of a puppet regime.
Italy is divided in two.
In the South, the Allies liberate the camps for foreigners.
In the north,
the Nazi SS and their Italian fascist allies take control and begin to hunt for
Jews.
Speaker 3
Everything changed overnight. I said to my mother, “We must leave our house. The Germans will take all the Jews and kill them.”
My father knew a goof man named Paoletti.
He started asking the neighbors until he found a woman upstairs,
Who said she’d take us in. May God bless them.
They were so good, courageous, and intelligent.
They never betrayed us to anyone. We were four Jews in that house. Four!
No one said a word. No on found out.
Narrator
In these dark days,
as the Germans tighten their control,
Italians must choose sides.
Obey the Nazi authorities or risk your
life to help those in danger.
Some take up arms to join the resistance.
Speaker 4
The Italian partisan's main occupation
was to save people from the Germans.
Speaker 3
I had friends in an anti-fascist group “The Youth Front.”
That’s how I found…a new understanding of life.
One could be anti-fascist.
That is, one could be against this government, against the Germans.
We brought food to the partisans hiding in the hills.
The Germans tried very hard to catch us but they didn’t.
I was very young but I had the courage only an 18-year old can have.
I was very brave, but also very stupid.
If they had caught me they’d have also caught my parents. But…
I was brave.
Narrator
The Nazi SS continue their sweep through
northern Italy.
To a small town near Venice.
Speaker 1
We were sent from Ferra Monte to live
with a fascist family.
We lived there about a year.
Then we were told by someone that we
needed to leave because the next day we
were due to be shipped off to an
extermination camp.
Samueli Paniki was a partisan leader who
helped us escape.
He brought us to hide in a village called
Secchiano.
I remember when Paniki dropped us off
and handed us over to his friends
Virgilio Virgili and Dissolina and Memo
Peruccini and they welcomed us in.
Speaker 5
All of your friends are waiting for you.
It’s a miracle.
Mercedes Virgili
I remember when this little girl arrived with her parents.
We knew they were Jewish and all the Germans were after them. They were hungry.
They were scared.
So we took them in and fed them.
And I shared a bed with Carlotta.
Speaker 1
Look at the Mountain. Weren’t the partisans up there?
Mercedes Virgili
The Germans would raid the town.
So they would need to go hide. They would go up in the mountains.
They would hide in the woods to avoid dangerous encounters.
They lived in such fear.
Speaker 1
I remember airplanes flying overhead,
dropping leaflets warning these people if
you are hiding Jews or partisans,
you're dead.
Still,
the entire town was in cahoots to keep our secret.
Those mountain are amazing. That’s what saved our lives the people and the mountains.
I was sitting in this church with Mercedes.
Suddenly the door swung open and a voice
screamed into the church.
The Germans are coming. They're coming.
I remember shoes and boots, fear.
Nobody was there and I thought the
Nazis grabbed them and they're dead.
They're dead.
And suddenly someone grabbed me.
There were lots of people hiding,
including my mother.
Speaker 6
Let us remember the people. Who came to Secchiano during the war.
Jews, those of other religions, and in the name of the Lord.
We say this prayer that makes us feel we are all brothers.
Speaker 7
Carlotta, I’m Desolina’s cousin.
Speaker 8
I remember the pretty little girl with a beautiful light complexion.
Speaker 9
I still remember you. You have the same face as when you were little.
Speaker 1
You remember?
Speaker 9
Actually, I do. As if it were now, really.