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ITALICO SANDRO MUSSOLINI ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
See you tomorrow, girls!
MILAN, MAY 1938
No, don't run or I'll look bad. Come on!
Liliana, sorry. Come.
I want to set up your bud.
-That's it. -Thanks.
Maestra Cesarina, do you have children?
No, I don't.
I'm nubile. But fortunately I have you, girls.
And I love you as you were my children.
But Mom has the others.
True.
So it means I love you more than the others.
-Liliana. -Dad!
-Hello, Dr. Segre. -Hello.
How did it go today? Were you good?
Sure, very good as always.
Shall we go?
-Goodbye. -Goodbye.
-Goodbye, Maestra Cesarina. -Bye, Liliana, see you tomorrow.
In Milan, at school, Liliana waited all morning for that moment.
The time when your father would arrive and take you by the hand.
Before the racial laws I was just a girl.
In a small family.
Petty bourgeois, lay.
So it was a Jewish family
but with no particular rites.
Or particular friendships.
I didn't even know I was Jewish.
NAPLES, JUNE 1938
Guys, it's ready in half an hour, eh!
Okay, Ma'!
Let's make the teams then.
There are five of us, but four Kahns.
-You go play with them and that's it. -Okay.
In Naples Tullio loved the streets of Vomero Hill,
the sea and soccer matches against the Kahn brothers
with whom he'd share far more than passion for football.
We were a bourgeois family
composed of Dad, Mom and five siblings.
And I was the youngest.
We were a peaceful family, if you like.
PISA, JULY 1938
In Pisa Guido had a dream.
To become a man like his father, good and brave.
And with his dad he'd discover
a child's courage could be bigger than an adult's.
Come on, Augusto! Why don't you come work here too?
-Why are you still in Rail? -Rail is a safe job.
It's nice, but we'll have to see the end.
And you like trains, don't you, Guido?
Uncle, but writing is gold, right?
When it's there, I will consider working here.
-Nice. -Good work, Uncle.
Most shops used to be Jews'.
That included my uncles' shops, let's say my family's.
It was my gran's shop, but family.
ROME, SEPTEMBER 1938
In Rome Lia really loved reading children's books and making up things.
She was a good singer too.
Lia, will you do this homework?
Yes, now I will.
Enough! I'm switching it off.
No, no, wait! Let the song finish.
No, no.
Dad's coming. Do the homework and fast.
Okay, then I'll finish it at home.
I know anyway.
For sure.
And what can you do, Signora? Lia is better than the radio.
I belonged to a bourgeois family.
Let's say, quite well off
with Jewish values.
But it wasn't completely observant apart from tradition.
It being quite an informed family
I picked up on anxiety even before the racial laws.
World Jewishness was,
during 16 years and despite our politics,
an enemy irreconcilable with fascism!
One needs a clear,
severe,
racial conscience
to fix not only differences
but very clear superiority!
On 5 September 1938, in Tenuta di San Rossore in Pisa,
King Vittorio Emanuele signed the first decree of the laws
to forbid in a few months Jews from performing most jobs
and especially Jewish children from going to school.
It's the start of an out and out persecution
of 50,000 Italians' civil rights whose only crime was being Jewish.
It's a disgrace! A disgrace! It's impossible!
I don't understand. I don't know what's with Mussolini.
Where are you going, eh? Amedeo, won't you talk?
And what can I say, eh? And Mussolini was different before.
Mussolini is Mussolini!
What's got into you? He's Hitler's ally! What were you thinking?
The Germans didn't ask him to do what he's doing!
It's his initiative, his idea!
-Enough, leave me in peace! -Yes, go, go. Go!
Roberto, you shouldn't take it out on your brother.
What's he to do with it?
Yes, but that's too easy! Now what will we tell Liliana?
What happened?
Huh? What's up, what did I do?
Nothing, you did nothing.
Listen, maybe you'd better talk there a minute.
To understand the terrible impact of the racial laws
towards those guys of '38
you also need to understand the betrayal they suffered.
They were Italian,
deeply immersed in the culture of the time.
They were boys feeling fascist 100%.
And overall, their Jewish culture was just marginal.
But the introduction of the racial laws
throws their Jewishness in their face.
They make them feel Jewish because others force them to.
The State Central Archive, in Rome,
is almost bursting with notes and texts by Mussolini
relating to the anti-Jewish law writings.
It's clear this person who applied himself, studied,
and the laws that finally came out, given that he's the dictator,
are the fruit of work and a considered, if we can use this term,
"serious" and deep thinking from his point of view, obviously.
From October 1938
Tullio Foà, Lia Levi, Guido Cava and Liliana Segre
will no longer be children like all the rest.
-They expelled you. -Expelled?
You cannot go back to school.
-What did I do? -Nothing, you did nothing.
It's the…
The government made laws, new laws,
prohibiting Jewish children from going to school with the others.
But why me?
We're Jews, Liliana.
Yes, but so what?
I'm Italian. Did they expel Italian children?
Not Catholic Italians, who they call "Aryan".
The word "expelled" from the elementary school,
where I was in first and second year,
was very bad news.
I could hardly bear it.
Because even a child knows
being expelled from school means you did something bad.
And I started with that question
"Why? Why? Why?"
that I could never answer.
I still can't.
It doesn't make sense.
Does it mean we are worth less?
For them.
Not so. Not so at all.
For me you are worth the same as all children, more, in fact!
What'll we do now?
Now I'll see and find a school that takes Jewish children too.
But you won't see Maestra Cesarina again.
How can we tell her?
She likes me so much.
JEWISH TEACHERS AND STUDENTS EXPELLED FROM SCHOOL
FROM THE 16TH OCTOBER
THE FATHER AND THE MOTHER DO NOT BELONG TO THE JEWISH RACE
The racial laws took us all by surprise.
After a bit of muttering I heard at home, my mother
took me aside and said, "I have to talk to you".
The whole talk was that I wouldn't go back to school.
There, that was the start of my upset, albeit unaware.
"From tomorrow you two won't go back to school."
I was eight, my brother 11.
So I said, "But why, Pa?
We studied a lot, we got good marks. Why won't we go back to school?"
"Because. Just because, okay, you won't."
The children do not just have to bear this new reality striking them.
They also see their families plunge into chaos and desperation.
Isn't it nice, Guido?
Augusto, what's up?
Augusto?
-I don't know how to say it, Cinzia. -Come, Guido.
You stay with the little one, eh.
There, with your little sister.
Augusto, what's wrong?
I lost my job, Cinzia.
I was fired this morning. Laws.
But Rail can't.
Yes, they can fire me. Must, in fact.
And soon there'll be no more school for Guido.
The office boss called my pa and said
"Cava, I'm glad you've become a father.
But I have to give you…
The good news is that you had a third daughter.
But I have to give you more news."
He opened the drawer and gave him the firing letter.
My pa knew about the racial laws and had expected it.
And they fired him.
-But why us? -"Why"? Because we're Jewish.
Just Jewish.
-Pa, what's going on? -I don't know, Guido.
I don't know.
Especially for the youngest children
the world starts with the awareness given from their parents,
the security parents imbue in children.
So to see, without even knowing what was happening,
seeing their parents weakened, in tears,
unable to reassure children
was the first sense of uncertainty
and loss of a child's world.
We know the great lines of the racial laws
that destroyed Jews' lives
and made them not second class citizens, but "not citizens".
But all the minor, even incompressible, worries
struck daily life.
I'm hardly going!
They said it other times, but it never happened.
It was okay till then because my brother-in-law was a war hero.
That protected us.
But now it's not enough. We can't keep you in service any more.
But why?
Because you are Aryan.
Aryan?
I'm Aryan? I'm from Tivoli. What does it mean?
For the State you're Aryan.
And Jews can no longer have Aryans in service.
Over the years, the serving lady was like family.
And for us it was like removing a pillar,
a home character.
So we experienced it as almost incommensurable,
not possible.
What will Lia do without me?
Actually there may be a solution, as long as you agree.
-Mrs. Colatei. -The neighbor?
I spoke to her. She seems willing to pretend to hire you.
-What does "pretend" mean? -You continue working here.
But you'll go to bed at Colatei's.
-So I'll work for them? -Oh no! You might do some chores.
You can lend them a hand, just to be kind.
You'll stay with us, right?
It looks a bit odd to me.
But if you say so, Signora, it's okay.
Hurrah!
The pact was that we paid her
but she stayed with this family and sometimes came to help in the home.
But as it happens in life, she got swallowed up
and identified with the other family.
And as well as the deprivation, we suffered enormous jealousy.
Because there were other girls there and she tended to them.
Hello.
There were heart-rending scenes too.
Always in daily life, not big things.
But minor dramas do affect people's lives.
Children do not understand the reasons
everyone suddenly turns their backs on them and on their parents.
As for all motherless children,
the teacher took on a special role
in my small heart, in how I felt then.
She was this female figure…
in whom I invested affection and hope.
Liliana has great trust in you.
But she's restless.
Just think, she worries more for you than herself.
For me?
I didn't know how to tell you, I was scared I'd upset you.
Sure.
She's a very sensitive girl.
But just see, she'll understand in the end.
Yes, I hope so.
You're her teacher and…
And as this has to happen,
you may help make it easier.
Me? Sorry, how? What do I have to do with it?
It's not up to me to decide whether Liliana can go back to school.
-I didn't make these laws. -Of course, I know.
But maybe you can help her understand, support her in the first stages.
Dr. Segre, you try to understand me.
Getting involved in these matters has become very dangerous.
I am a civil servant.
I also have to think of myself
and all the other girls.
It's not just you Jews.
Now if you don't mind, I must go.
-Goodbye. -Goodbye.
I remember it was a great disappointment for me.
Because I expected kisses and hugs and great pain
that she wouldn't have me at school but she said:
"I didn't make the racial laws. How am I involved?"
She didn't even send greeting to me.
And it was… a very bad moment.
I think there were 25 girls then.
And only two were still my friends.
They continued inviting me to their little parties
and coming round to play.
The others didn't notice I'd stopped going to school.
School is just the first step.
The regime wants to eliminate Jews from all areas of public life
and all institutions,
even at the cost of paying a big price.
In fact it finally sacks professors, professionals
and our country's high profile intellectuals.
Like scientists Emilio Segré,
Bruno Pontecorvo and the two Nobel Prizewinners.
Physicist Enrico Fermi, married to a Jew.
And economist Franco Modigliani.
Italian society does not protest publicly.
The King does not protest.
The other real, great and different power does not protest,
even counter power, that is the Holy See.
The 1938 laws are accompanied by a consensus,
or these blessed formulas of quite high tacit consent.
The government that issued the laws on 5 September 1938
altered the law.
And said that if it was possible to organize, just for elementary school,
a class of ten girls and boys from first to fifth year of elementary
they would authorize them to go to a state school.
Sir, sorry, but I didn't…
Totò, be so kind, come here.
Can you get me a coffee? But not out here.
-Go to the piazza. It's better. -Fine.
Mrs. Foà, we have a problem.
The law allows forming a special class for Judeans
if there are at least ten six-year-old kids.
Here at Scuola Vanvitelli we only have nine.
I know, my children study here.
-Remo and Mario. -Yes, I know.
I'm interested in the other one. That's why I called for you.
What's his name?
-Tullio. -Tullio.
-And how old is Tullio? -Five.
You're quite sure he's five?
No.
He's six.
Fine, quite fine.
We'll join him to the other nine and form the class.
If he'd been five, it would have been impossible.
But if that's the way.
Thank you, Sir. Thank you.
-Did you hear? -Do I have to go to school a year early?
-And I have to thank you too? -Tullio.
-Thank you. -You're welcome.
-Goodbye. -Goodbye.
Goodbye, little one.
-Goodbye. -Goodbye.
Thank you.
All great, I was very content,
I went to school with my elder brother and the friends
I met in our place of worship, called a synagogue.
I had my outfit too, my black apron,
my starched white collar and nice red bud.
But a few days later I started to notice something strange.
One.
Two.
Scuola Vanvitelli has a very big gate
and very small side gate.
All the boys and girls went in by the main gate.
And just the ten of us, only us, we went in by this secondary gate
fifteen minutes before the others.
We also left by this gate 15 minutes after the others.
There, that's when it was clear we were the abnormal ones.
What are they doing?
They're Jews. They can't do gym with us normal ones.
We couldn't have contacts with the other children.
And clearly they said: "They're Jews! They're Jews!"
But even they didn't know what it meant.
All the minor, even incompressible, worries
struck everyday life.
For example, the fact that Jews couldn't have a radio.
Even then, I thought and said,
"It isn't a broadcasting radio."
If it were one,
you could pass information to the enemy but you could only listen to this radio.
And that did hit me, because it was like denying children a TV.
And things got worse rapidly.
A series of circulars increasingly hardens the racial laws.
It's a gust of discrimination and prohibitions of all kinds.
And it doesn't matter that most of the constrictions are totally absurd.
What's prohibited doesn't count.
Because life is what they want to make impossible for Jews.
By that, the regime gets two results at the same time.
One is simple and pure, to persecute the Jews.
The other is to incite their leaving.
Dad was vice director of a bank.
And he was told that from today he would no longer be part of the bank
because he was fired.
Dad asked for the reason and they said it was because he is Jewish.
And Dad emigrated to Africa, Asmara to be precise,
where it was thought that there was work for Italians.
And because there the racial laws were not as rigid
as they were becoming in Italy.
JEWS
-When did it happen? -Tonight.
Cowards.
Better that way. Imagine if you were inside.
Yes. Now we even have to be thankful for what happened.
Franco, listen.
Is your offer to me still valid?
Are you sure? Now it's more dangerous.
-We really don't know how it'll end. -They took my job from me. And know what?
I'll get a new job. I don't care if it is dangerous.
Is that okay for you?
Of course, Augusto. Great!
Come on then, let's get busy.
And I don't even know why, I just felt like it,
I picked up a shard from the window.
Who knows why? I just felt like it, let's say.
And I put it in my pocket.
And I even kept it after the war. I'm sorry I later lost it.
You know, cannon shots, bombardments…
Anyway I kept it, I remember I had it after the war.
People of Italy!
Run to arms!
And show…
ROME, 10 JUNE 1940
…your tenacity!
Your courage!
Your value!
At home, Mom looked worried.
Worried grandparents, aunts and uncles, elder brothers too.
When I went home, I always noticed one less picture
or table or carpet.
To feed these four kids
Mom sold all she could.
We practically became poor.
But being poor is no disgrace.
It's a condition.
So Mom made a decision after consulting with us.
To let a room.
A room was let to a very tall gentleman whom I remember very well.
This man came.
And we realized that he listened to Radio London.
It was practically a very important radio,
with an Italian speaker sending strange messages to Italy.
Felice is not felicitous.
It meant nothing to normal people.
The cow doesn't give milk.
But for the partisans getting organized against the Germans
it meant a lot.
It meant the planes would probably parachute medicines,
arms, money.
But when Mom realized this man was listening to Radio London
she told him, "You can't stay here any more".
"I have four young children and we're at the nub of the cyclone.
Be kind, you must go away."
The gentleman left. His name was Piero Calamandrei.
He was one of the characters who wrote the Constitution.
Who removed the seal?
Maybe, I don't know, listen to Radio London.
That's torn it.
Do you know?
Sorry, it must have been the service lady who hit it while cleaning.
I think it's easy to repair.
I think it can be repaired!
Give the other rooms a look.
Please, Comrade, check our documents.
-You'll see we're decent. -Documents?
I know who you are.
Please, check anyway.
That's fine.
Let's go!
Come on then!
-What, we just go away? -Yes, you do.
Take that and good night.
That way you won't be tempted.
Right?
Thank me then.
Thank you.
Nothing has happened.
Nothing, it's over. It's over, my girl.
There is also a form of violence,
I mean the bureaucratic application of these laws
recently discovered by the Anselmi Commission.
It's read in the confiscation reports.
Imagine the police entering the Jews' homes
to confiscate brushes, chamber pots, tools for everyday life.
There are two phases in the ownership of goods.
In an initial period, from 1938 to 1943,
the tips are polished off.
I mean a ceiling is placed, quite low actually,
on the goods a Jew can own.
Beyond that ceiling he is forced to cede them
and undergo expropriation receiving in exchange certificates
at a rate quite lower than the market one then.
So buying and reselling Jews' houses was a manna for the State.
After 8 September 1943
it goes to the generalized confiscation
of all Jewish owned goods.
Very few were able to understand the necessity to flee.
And understanding that was not enough, they also needed knowledge,
they needed to get visas, the documents for expatriation.
Most countries closed their borders to fleeing Jews.
So many saw the chance to go away denied too.
And there was also the random element, the decision to trust a neighbor
rather than a stranger.
Because sometimes it could be the neighbor who betrayed
and vice versa, the stranger who helped keep you safe.
Tell me what's up, Mom.
Mrs. Foà?
Salvatore Pace, Public Safety. Let's continue walking, please.
Let's treat this like a nice conversation. Smile.
A report reached us.
And when this happens, as I'm police, I'm forced to verify.
-What report? -They're after you. Understand?
And in your position tracing you is easy.
That's the problem. It's dangerous for you and your family.
And what do you want from me?
Is there anyone,
some friend of yours who's not your race
and ready to put your house in his name?
Your bills, the water, the light.
I don't know, I'll have to think. Why?
Do it at once.
Then you'll finally disappear.
Maybe you'll become ghosts for us.
We don't know each other.
Thank you. Let's go.
We are very grateful to Commissioner Salvatore Pace
for helping us.
But we didn't know who he was, and he didn't know us either.
So it was a remarkable act of altruism.
Like Marcello Magrì too, who was a family friend,
who put the deeds and rent in his name, even facing dangers
deriving from the penalties the Party meted out.
After the USA entered the war, the wind started to change.
On 10 July 1943 the Allies land in Sicily.
Soon after, on 25 July, Mussolini is deposed and arrested.
On 8 September General Badoglio proclaims armistice.
Many Italians think the war is over.
Not so.
Italy precipitates into chaos.
The King and government flee from Rome to Brindisi
leaving the Italian army without orders.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are caught by Germans
and deported into Northern Europe.
The country splits in two.
The South is controlled by the Allies
while the center and North are occupied by Nazi fascist forces.
When Livorno was navally bombarded,
Pisa citizens were fraught with worry too.
What have we here?
-Where is the Jewish capitalist? -He lives there, in that house.
Break the door down!
Help!
Help! Let go!
Help!
Let go! Help!
Move! You, dirty Jew, get up!
Get up, come on! I've no time to lose!
Where's the gold?
Guido, get away from the window!
We have to go, we must leave.
We'll do this…
You take Flora and go to your aunt.
Guido and I can go to my brother in Calci, okay?
Mussolini, freed by the Nazis, returns to power
and is placed at the head of the Republic of Salò
which goes from Lazio, including Rome, to all the center-North.
While the allied forces support King Vittorio Emanuele III
in the Kingdom of Italy, made up of all the South,
Mussolini chooses to adhere totally to Hitler's fury.
Those belonging to the Jewish race
are officially declared foreign and enemies.
Jews, all Jews, must be arrested
and deported to concentration camps in Germany and Poland.
Freedom and peace seemed to be close.
But for Italian Jews it is the start of the most atrocious nightmare.
The Carta di Verona is a document approved in mid-November 1943.
It holds a series of objectives on the social field.
And its contents declare
that those belonging to the Jewish race are foreign
and during this war belong to enemy nationality.
At that moment citizenship for Italian Jews is revoked.
Breathe.
Will you come out with me for a moment?
The child has pneumonia.
He must be hospitalized now.
No, that's impossible.
-It's impossible. -Why?
Because we are Jewish.
That's why we're hiding here.
My pa said, "Doctor, look, we're a family of Jews.
We can't go to the hospital as the Germans would take us away."
I understand.
He's a fascist.
What if he reports us?
He starts the engine and goes.
He goes.
After barely an hour…
It was the doctor.
The fever is still high.
Here.
One tablet every six hours.
Every six hours, mind.
Tomorrow tell me how he is.
-Thank you. -Thank you, Doctor.
Back then there was no penicillin, just medicine like that.
And for a week he came twice a day.
Morning and night.
Families have brothers, sisters,
sometimes even twins
whose destiny is sealed.
Everything will be fine, Guido.
The two Segre brothers, Amedeo and Alberto, were a year apart.
The two were very different.
One winner.
It was my uncle.
One loser. It was my dad.
When the moment came to flee,
the hardest moment for everyone,
my uncle, now married to a Catholic,
fled to the mountain with his wife.
Just like that, he left my dad with the two parents.
Granddad, very ill with Parkinson's,
and Gran, who was losing it a bit
over all the fear and shock.
My dad, an extraordinary son and father,
was so scarily conflicted.
He wanted to keep me safe.
But how could he leave his parents alone? How?
The Nazi fascist forces immediately implement their deportation plan
and choose the city to start from.
The deportations would start from Naples.
The Germans had organized everything very well.
Colonel Scholl,
commander of the Campania region and positioned at Naples,
organized everything very meticulously.
He even chose music to accompany the Jews.
To ease the Jewish march.
It was "Lacrimosa", from Mozart's Requiem Mass in D Minor.
But Colonel Scholl underestimated the Neapolitans.
Because in four days the Neapolitans managed to quash the Germans.
Amid partisans, lads and lasses,
the Germans fled in these four days.
And, if we like, Naples is the only city in the world
that was liberated alone without help from any army.
On 9 October in Trieste and 16 October 1943 in Rome
thousands of Jews are arrested
and after some checks are loaded onto livestock trucks
and sent to concentration camps in Central Europe.
The 1,259 people arrested in the capital include 207 children.
But only 15 men and one woman will return from Auschwitz.
Many in Rome manage to save themselves
hiding in those convents that bravely open their doors.
These are the documents of a girl who studied here
and because of the war has not yet returned.
Now they are yours. It says Maria Cristina Cataldi.
This will be your name from now on.
You will only answer if they use that name.
Lia no longer exists. Forget her for now.
They gave me an 11-year-old girl's name
called Maria Cristina Cataldi.
And the best thing for a Jew is to be called Maria Cristina--
The surname doesn't matter.
I know that for many Jewish children
this business of losing their name was a tragedy.
For me it wasn't like a tragedy.
For me it was like becoming another, let's say, like in a play.
Before eating, the girls in the refectory always make the sign of the cross.
Maria Cristina, you should too, or the others will understand.
-Can you do it? -Yes.
Yes, more or less like this.
Just that you did it the wrong way.
Catholics do it like this, from left to right.
You did it like an Orthodox, from right to left.
Very good, that's it.
Fiamma!
Come here, please.
-Yes, Mother. -This is Maria Cristina.
From now on she'll be in the room with you.
Accompany her, so she can settle her things.
Go.
I'm Fiamma. Do you like it here?
I don't know, maybe.
You'll be fine, you'll see.
If you like, you can sleep with me and my sister Fioretta.
-Hi. -Hi.
In the convent, even there, danger was close by.
Because the Germans came twice, three times.
And once…
I heard a year ago from a sister who's still alive.
And once they were looking for Jews.
But they made do with the first two floors.
Over a type of miracle,
just as they were about to go up the third flight
where Jews were hiding, they left.
If you're in the North,
where the dominium is firmly in the hands of the Nazi fascist forces
the only true hope is to stay hidden or to flee to Switzerland.
My father found a system,
that then seemed a way to salvation for the grandparents.
A permit from Como Station.
Given his age and health,
Como Station issued this permit for two old people
where it said they were unable to harm the German Reich.
And that's when we tried to flee to Switzerland.
Are we there? Are we in Switzerland?
Not yet.
And from here on it's more dangerous.
It's full of patrols.
-So? -So it's another thousand lire.
How come, another thousand lire? I already gave you 1,000 lire.
Then you'll find Switzerland yourselves.
No, wait. Wait.
This is gold. It's worth more than a thousand lire.
We were…
Two small, petty bourgeois facing the mountain.
Incapable, grotesque.
My dad had always said, "We'll never do it".
Me, "Yes, we absolutely must. Let's go, let's go".
And I felt like some kind of heroine
on the mountains behind Varese.
Behind the smugglers who would say,
"Quick, or a patrol will pass and shoot!"
Over that crest. That's Switzerland there.
Aren't you coming?
You have to go to Switzerland, not me.
-Baggage. -There!
It'll arrive before you, you'll see.
When we arrived in Switzerland, we were happy.
I said, "See, Dad? We did it!" And we hugged happily.
Not so.
Stop! Hands up!
Who are you?
Jews. Italian Jews.
Documents.
Thank goodness you came.
Our lives are in danger. You know that, right?
What I know is you could be a deserter.
It was a terrible character.
He despised us, said we were liars,
that it wasn't true that Jews were persecuted in Italy.
That, at the age of 43, my dad wanted to escape the call up,
forgetting that due to the fascist racial laws
Jews couldn't participate in army duty.
If you take us to your superior, we can explain.
I won't take you anywhere! Go back to where you cam from!
Please, you don't understand what it means for us.
You don't understand! If we go back, they'll kill us!
I beg you! Please!
I threw myself to the ground, pleaded.
He sent us back at gunpoint.
When we were arrested there on the border…
I still didn't understand at that moment,
why I was there with my dad,
what would happen later, it was impossible to imagine.
I was simply in my thoughts of then,
albeit prematurely aged by what happened.
But when I first entered…
Varese woman's prison,
the digital fingerprints, the photography…
Why?
Why? Why? Why?
I had that obsessive question inside toward the void
of why I was there.
Then they took me to Como Prison
and after, the great Milanese San Vittore Jail.
I was born in Milan and would always ride my bike round the prison.
But I never thought I'd see it from inside.
The prison I saw from outside.
And after 40 days
of imprisonment in cell 202, fifth block,
where my dad and I stayed…
After standing the anguish
of seeing him taken away twice, three times a week
for terrible GESTAPO interrogations…
Well, I grew old.
When he came back and we hugged…
I was his mom.
I was his sister.
He was my child to console.
Then the day came
when a German official entered the block
and said we were to prepare to leave for an unknown destination the next day.
How can you look in the wagon? How do you feel?
How do you…
How do you accept it?
What do you wonder?
Why? Who did this?
Who organized this?
They are men like us. They aren't crazy.
At first everyone in the wagon cries.
These tears that no one wipes away.
This terror of being locked inside.
And then no one cries any more.
And there's the prayer.
The prayer of those gathered in the center of the wagon
who thank God.
We look at them in envy.
They even praise God in that situation.
Where was God?
I don't know.
There was Jewish Easter.
The family of two girls in the group, I mean two Jewish girls
decided that for one day, to have Jewish Easter
they could go back home.
Just one day.
Actually, they said, "The Germans don't know everything".
And these words hit me so I said to my mom,
"Listen, it's true, why don't we go for a day too?"
My mother said, "Don't even think about it".
The Germans did know everything,
because the neighbors grassed.
And these children were taken away together with all the family.
And we waited for them.
We waited for them to return the next day.
Yes? Tell me.
Oh no.
When did it happen?
And the girls?
Thank you.
Is there news?
A grass.
They took them. All.
Even Fiamma and Fioretta?
Yes, the girls too.
The nun had to tell us.
And everybody cried terribly.
A drama that hit to the bone.
In January 1944, the worst year in the war,
the Americans land in Anzio, 60 km from Rome.
But it will take them six months to free the capital.
In the territories already under Allied control
20 January sees the start of the repeal of the racial laws.
But the road will be slow and hard.
-I'll kill you. -Drop dead!
-Stop! What are you doing? Stop! -Who are you?
Get away! He's a fascist, to be executed!
I'm a Jew! And this man saved my son's life.
-If you kill him, where is justice? -Here.
And if you don't go away, you'll have to worry about your life.
No, it's true! We're Jews, but he still saved my life.
What does that mean? He's still a fascist!
And you? Want to be like him?
He was fascist like 90% of Italians, let's say, no?
Seventy percent were antifascist, let's say.
Twenty percent were mini fascists.
And then there were 10% who were foolish, dirty, crooks
doing what they were doing.
Meanwhile, despite the Allied advance,
as many as 7,172 Italian Jews, including almost 1,000 children,
are deported to Germany and Poland, mostly to Auschwitz.
Only a few hundred will survive.
Rather than turn military resources to slowing the enemy advance
the Nazis and their allies actually accelerate the implementation
of the Final Solution against the Jews.
Auschwitz is reached.
Whistles, barks, shouts in German.
We hurl ourselves down from those wagons, our legs stiff.
People who just cannot get out are thrown out of the wagon.
And there, on that "Judenrampe",
that long since prepared, artificial station,
you came to a world that is not a world.
You came to a nightmare.
You're part of a diabolical design
you're not ready for and you wonder why.
And then I let go of my father's hand forever.
And I hope he also thought we would meet again that night.
But…
we never would.
But then we didn't know.
I hope he didn't know at that moment either.
In the first hovel…
you're stripped.
You're shaven, razored.
Your number is tattooed on your left arm.
You're no longer the one who got down from the wagon two hours ago.
How can you…
not go mad at 13?
I saw this world…
in which order, severity, and terror
applied to every human being as long as they remained alive
turned you into a number.
They turned you into a "Stück", a piece
just like your murderers wanted you to be.
Fortunately I looked older than I was.
Both because I was very tall
and because the journey dried me.
So no one asked for my age.
Later I discovered they could consider me a 15-year-old
or a 16-year-old.
Because at 13 you went to the gas chamber.
A few days later I was taken to work in a factory.
We made chests for machine guns.
It was a factory working for the war.
And at the machine there was a French girl called Janine.
She was a pretty girl.
And though it was totally forbidden
we always exchanged a few words in this coming and going.
After we'd worked together for several months
the machine sliced two phalanxes off two of her fingers.
And in the following days there was a selection.
A terrible one, as they sometimes did to get rid of all the sick,
all those no longer able to work, and send them to the gas chamber.
They were moments of total terror.
You had an overwhelming fear arriving there,
your heart beating like mad.
"I want to live. I want to live. I want to live."
We had to line up in single file,
arrive where there were two officials.
And they…
Imagine a nude woman before uniformed men
looking at her in front, behind, in the mouth.
Then they make that fantastic gesture…
"Go, you live this time."
You feel grateful to your killer, you're still alive, you're happy.
Behind me they stop Janine.
And decide to send her to the gas.
It was horrible.
I became a hungry, selfish wolf
no longer willing to love anyone
or to stand distances.
I didn't turn. I didn't say, "Bye, Janine.
I love you.
Be brave."
Or even just, "Janine".
I got dressed again.
And the next day there was another worker in her place.
I never forgave myself.
Janine didn't grow old…
because she was born.
Meanwhile the allied troops on one side, the Soviet army on the other
advance and get closer and closer to the concentration camps.
In Poland the Nazis leave the camps that are about to be conquered
and start to transfer the deported Jews to Germany.
Auschwitz is liberated on 27 January 1945.
A date now celebrated as Memory Day.
The order came to leave the factory,
and start walking.
This march would later be called "the march of death".
And how do you walk first through Poland
and then Germany?
You did over 700 km.
One foot and then the next.
How do you do it?
If you fall, you're killed by an escort guard
ordered to shoot in the head anyone falling.
"You can't die on that road with the bloody snow.
You must live."
And one foot before the next, one before the next.
And you walk, walk, walk.
You see people die on the streets, you see them fall.
And when I think of that girl
walking on the snow, unable to lean on anyone,
alone, completely alone,
in that universe of evil,
who coped with everything that happened to her,
with the things she saw…
my pain is infinite.
How did she manage?
How did she manage to be here, now, old?
How?
On 1 May the Red Army enters the Malchow Concentration Camp
north of Berlin, where Liliana Segre is found prisoner.
The Nazis, in terror, start to flee
and try to camouflage themselves as prisoners.
Then I saw the commander of the last camp,
a terrible SS officer,
whipping the moribund women we have become
smacks just to prove himself a monster.
I had dreamt of revenge for over a year,
I had hate and desperation inside.
So when I saw him cast his weapon to the ground…
I was sorely tempted.
I thought, "Now I'll take the pistol and shoot him".
It felt like the right finale
for all the violence I suffered and saw others suffer.
But it was a moment.
I understood I was unlike my assassin.
That I chose life and couldn't take it from anyone.
From that moment on, I was the free woman
and the woman of peace I am now.
MILAN, SEPTEMBER 1945
-Hi. -Hello.
Go, go from here.
We have nothing to give.
Antonio.
Don't you recognize me?
I'm Liliana. Liliana Segre.
Oh, Lord.
Liliana. Liliana!
I knew.
I knew you were alive.
Look here, look.
It's the Red Cross card I sent you from Germany.
Sorry, it was the only address I had.
"Sorry"?
As soon as it arrived, I called your Uncle Amedeo.
No one lives here now, but they left me your phone.
Come to the lodge, we'll call at once, come.
Return and home.
I think both concepts are impossible in this case.
At the moment you are welcomed back
by surviving relatives
and you try to start living again…
Often, even in good faith, you are told to forge.
So paradoxically, for many,
the survival and silence that come later are the real trauma.
Not being able to tell, or being heard or understood.
So closing oneself in silence.
The face of my relatives when they saw me…
It was disappointment written on their countenance.
They were so overwhelmed before that being
so unlike the one they imagined they would meet.
So unlike the nice little girl of their final memory.
Was it good, dear?
Eat, eat. You do well.
There.
So you read better.
Want to play Lotto with them too?
-Liliana, apologize to your aunt. -Why?
It was her looking at me. Her face!
Liliana, this is wrong.
Amedeo, don't worry. It doesn't matter, really.
Liliana, dear, for the apple… Knife and fork.
What do you know about apples?
The apple is a gift from God.
Know how much I care about your knife and fork?
I was a virgin.
It was my biggest problem.
They had me examined, they didn't believe it.
It was humiliating.
Nothing happened in that way.
We weren't raped. That's all myth.
We were skeletal, monstrous, dirty, with abscesses.
Would nice German soldiers choose us?
They went with their peers ready for use.
I was also different from my friends
who thought of boys, new clothes, going dancing.
And I caught up at school.
In private I did five years in one.
And mainly I learnt…
to stop hoping to find my father.
Listeners, ladies and gentlemen,
our great New Voices contest continues.
Many letters already arrived, but we expect many more.
Write to RAI, Radio Audizioni Italiane.
It was post war and we listened to the radio we finally had back.
It was a game,
They asked questions and children could write.
So I wrote a letter to participate in the contest
and had my mother read it.
Mom!
The contest people said they were expecting new letters.
If they choose you, they let you sing.
Let me read it.
"Dear radio, I'm Lia Levi, a Jewish girl."
Mom, what are you doing?
We'll rewrite this, eh.
You're not a Jewish girl. Understand?
You're a girl. Just a girl.
I didn't understand, and then she repeated it.
"You're not a Jewish girl. You're just a girl."
That was moving.
Because first you understand things like that, vaguely.
But that's how it sinks in. It's a concept, no longer just a word.
Luckily, three years after my return
I went to the sea with my grandparents, one summer.
I joined a group of boys and girls by the sea.
And the group accepted me.
I at once noticed a boy.
We started to chat.
And I took to him.
In fact, I had the thrill of feeling feminine.
Because before that I was a poor girl.
He saw my tattooed arm and said…
I know what it is.
You must have suffered a lot.
I know because I was a prisoner too.
I saw many like you.
He was an IMI, one of those 600,000 poor unarmed
who then chose the concentration camp
so as not to adhere to the Republic of Salò.
Let's go.
Yes, let's.
And so we fell in love, greatly, with each other.
He took me by the hand and taught me it was I
who, having chosen to return to the so-called civilized society,
it was I who had to adjust.
I couldn't demand that others adjust to me.
And with his love, with his hand tight on mine
it was the great miracle of my life.
It was him.
When I entered middle school…
my emotion was intense.
Because I understood I regained freedom.
But mostly I regained dignity.
And no one had destroyed me.
And everything went, bit by bit.
And in 1947 my dad died.
My mom brought up her three children with relatives' help.
Basically, we returned to business and it went on.
And here we are now relating all these nice things.
Fortunately time was kind.
Time, the great soother.
A soother, not a healer.
What do I have left?
That I formed myself at that time.
I mean, it's not that I'm like this and there's a distant memory.
My formation, my way of life…
Even something in how I defend myself from life
I inherited from that part.
Even now there are difficulties
just like obstacles in life, but I think…
"Okay, we did it then, we can do it again."
Liliana, Lia, Tullio and Guido are children of destiny.
In the years after the war they worked, married
and built their families.
This has been their victory over those they considered enemies.
Liliana Segre currently lives in Milan, has three children and five grandchildren.
On 19th January 2018,
the President of Italy Sergio Mattarella appointed her senator for life.
Tullio Foà now lives in Naples. His mother died at 103 years old
and he visits his siblings regularly, although they don't play
soccer matches against the Kahn brothers anymore.
Guido Cava lives in Pisa. He worked in the book trade
and was president of the Jewish Community in his hometown.
Lia Levi didn't become a singer, she became a writer and a journalist.
In 2018, she won the Strega Ragazzi Prize.
"Dedicated to all the children that could not become adults because of hatred."