A Child Al Confino: The True Story of a Jewish Boy and His Mother in Mussolini's Italy (11 page)

“Then why is it taking so long to get a visa? Don't they know what's happening to the Jews in Europe? Nobody wants us. Not Germany, not Austria, not Italy nor France. Not even Switzerland.” Mother was crying and her voice had become louder.

“You know, bureaucracy takes its good old time,” said Sally.

“Meanwhile our family is separated and we are living like gypsies.”

“I wish I could help.” Then turning to me, Sally said, “I have something for you from your father.”

“What is it?”

She opened one of her large suitcases and handed me a small package.

“A camera,
Mutti
, a camera!” I was so excited I thought I would burst.

“Your father gave me instructions on how to operate it, but I cannot remember anything.”

It was a Kodak Retina. “This is more than I ever dreamed. It has all these buttons and numbers. Oh,
Mutti
, Papa remembered he had promised it to me.”

The next day, Aunt Sally took me to a camera shop to purchase a roll of film, there the man showed me how to use the camera. His complicated instructions were of limited use, because as soon as we left the store, I forgot most of what the man had shown me. My Papa would have made the learning process much easier.

Sally spent three days with us, then sailed for New York from Genoa. It was August 1939, and San Remo was still tranquil. This was the heavenly spot that had so enraptured Alfred Nobel and the parents of the Queen of Italy to make them choose it as their final resting place.

On September 1, the news was everywhere: Germany had invaded Poland, marking the beginning of the Second World War. Soon after, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany, and in June 1940, eager to cement his relationship with his ally, Mussolini entered the conflict on Hitler's side.

“Why are you gluing all this paper on the windows?” I asked Signor Grimaldi.

“The narrow strips will stop the glass from shattering,” he said. “The large sheets will not allow the light to shine outside.”

I couldn't understand why we needed all that. So what if the light shined outside?

Because streetlights were no longer lit at night, many of the side-walks' edges were painted with a special paint.

“What's that for?” I asked.

“This phosphorescent paint shines at night.”

I didn't understand but asked no more of the busy man.

At the corner newsstand, my lady friend allowed me to look at the artists' drawings in
La Domenica del Corriere
that depicted the events of the war, making it possible to follow what was happening in faraway Poland. I would then run home and tell
Mutti
all I had seen.

“There is a picture showing all those German planes dropping hundreds of bombs and the buildings burning.”

The invasion of Poland terrified us. I wanted to know what was happening to my father, to my grandparents and to all the aunts, uncles, and cousins living there.

A few short weeks later, our fears became more intense when we learned that Poland had surrendered and Germany now occupied the entire country. My mother tried to obtain news about our family in Lwow, but because San Remo did not have foreign consulates, she learned nothing.

Soon after the start of hostilities, the German army had selected the Italian Riviera as a rest-and-recreation area for their soldiers, transforming this peaceful resort town into an armed arena.

One evening, with my mother's permission to keep me out past my bedtime, the Grimaldis took me with them to visit some friends. The grown-up talk was boring, but I was happy to be out past my usual time. We had just said good night to our hosts and were walking home when we heard an ear-piercing sound, a whistle coming from up high and approaching with great speed.

“What is it?” I gasped.

Before anyone realized what was happening, we saw a big flash in the garden that surrounded the Municipal Casino. Then we heard the boom.

“Get down!” Guerino screamed. Too late.

The air pressure created by the explosion knocked Guerino against the short retaining wall that separated the garden from the outside pavement. Being a bit shorter than the wall, I was shielded by it. Guerino's forehead was bruised and bleeding profusely and his wife, although unharmed, went into hysterics at the sight of his blood dripping on the pavement.

“
Madonna mia
!
Madonna mia
!” she screamed. “They're going to kill us.”

“Calm yourself,” Guerino admonished her.

“Look at you. You're bleeding to death. Help, anyone! Help!” she yelled.

“Be still. I'm not hurt and I'm not bleeding to death.”

I wanted to know what had happened, but no one knew for certain. “I think we are in the middle of an air raid,” Guerino said.

It was an air raid, San Remo's first, a terrifying experience, one we would relive many times again.

Two more bombs exploded at a distance and then total silence. Frightened, I clutched Guerino's hand. The silence was absolute, hair-raising. We let some minutes go by before we stood up from our crouched position.

“Let's go,” Guerino suggested.

Nothing was moving and not a single light was shining as we made our way home. All electric power had been cut. As in a spooky fairy tale, only the outlines of the buildings were visible in the moonlit night.

Back in the apartment, Mother, a lit candle in hand, came to the stairwell when she heard our voices. “Oh, Enrico, I've been worried to death. Where were you?”

“I saw the bombs explode!” I shouted. “We were on the street right where they fell. It was so exciting.”

“You thought it was an adventure while I worried my head off.” She gripped me in a tense bear hug, which seemed to bring her some relief. So concerned was Mother about me that she had not noticed Guerino's bleeding forehead. Once she did, she rushed to wash the man's face and bandage the superficial wound.

The next morning, news that we had been in the midst of the bombardment spread quickly. Every tenant in the building came by to ask what had happened.

“Did you see the explosion?”

“Did you see the bombs?”

“How about the planes? How many were there? Could you see them?”

Mamma entered the room. “Please, please. Can't you see Signor Grimaldi is still in shock? Give him a few days to recover, please.”

Later that day, we learned why they had attacked this peaceful resort town. No, it had not been a mistake. A French plane had targeted the Municipal Casino, where a group of German officials was being entertained, but the small bombs, which were dropped manually by someone in the plane, had totally missed their target.

Air raids became the order of the night. They came with such frequency that, after a few days, Mother laid out my clothes at the foot of the bed so I could dress in darkness the moment the sirens blared. No matter what time the sirens sounded, my mother was always ready first, waiting for me at the door. She must have taken to sleeping in her clothes. How else could she have dressed so rapidly?

In silence and in haste, we descended the three flights to the basement. All the tenants assembled there. A solitary light bulb at the end of a dust-encrusted electric cord floated from the high ceiling. Swaying and twisting ever so slowly, it cast a spooky glow on that damp, bleak place. I fantasized that the lonely light was dancing from the joy of seeing so many people and at last felt no longer lonesome.

While we waited in the cellar, my mother would tell me family stories of her growing-up years. She told me how, after graduating from high school, she worked in a bank. “I had to help
Omama
. My father had died when I was still an infant. I had two sisters and one brother. We all had to help.” I loved when she shared those experiences with me.

Some of our neighbors sat on blankets, some had brought chairs, while others sat on the bare concrete floor. Mother and I had wrapped ourselves in an old military blanket that her sister, my Aunt Stefi, had sent with the Turkish student. I snuggled close to Mother and held her hand.

Most people sat still in the cold dungeon. Only a few small children ran around. With each blast of a bomb exploding nearby our blanket quivered while Mother and I trembled. Yet of all the people there, I was the only one who had actually seen real bombs fall. The explosions and the terrifying flashes were still very vivid in my mind.

Several women, rosary in hand, recited their prayers out loud. Whenever a bomb fell close enough to make the building shake and the electricity failed, throwing us into total darkness, the scene became a bedlam. The men invoked the name of the Lord, the Holy Mary, and every saint. I never knew so many saints existed. Because the men yelled, the would wailed and the children screamed. The noise in the basement was louder than that created by the bombing outside. I curled up to my mother for protection. As frightening as those nightly episodes were, my fears would evaporate as soon as the “all-clear” siren sounded; thoughts of games and beaches would soon replace the angst in my head.

For weeks, small planes deprived us of a full night's sleep. Once, when the all-clear sounded a few minutes after the initial alarm, it was rumored that the siren had been sounded to allow Mussolini to go through town unnoticed.

The French battleground was about thirty-five miles from us. Day and night, the gruesome images of war were with us in the constant flow of ambulances rushing through the narrow streets to one of the two local hospitals. Small, canvas-covered
camionette,
built to carry only four stretchers, came from the front with eight or ten wounded soldiers at a time. The sight of heads hidden behind bloody bandages and limbs partially detached from the bodies by the furor of war terrified yet fascinated me. I remembered the war stories Papa had told me that night on the train as we fled Vienna. Now those remote images had turned into powerful and horrible realities.

Much changed in San Remo in a short time and there was little left to remind us of what, only a few weeks before, had been a peaceful and idyllic place.

Homeowners and storekeepers were busy lining their windows with newspaper and long strips of tape and all cars had their headlights masked by heavy, dark paper so that only a thin beam of light could shine through.

In San Remo, most of the pretty villas, draped by luscious flowers and tropical trees, were surrounded by decorative wrought iron fences. I enjoyed running a piece of rolled-up cardboard or a scrap of wood across those vertical bars to create the sound of a drum roll. To my dismay, within days after the war broke out, I saw men with acetylene torches cut down these elaborate metal enclosures.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Mussolini needs the metal to make guns,” they explained.

Because air raids always happened during the night, the only victim was our sleep. But as soon as we left the shelter, Mamma would insist on my going back to bed. “You have to get some sleep,
Schatzele
,” she'd say.

For a kid of nine, these nightly raids had become more of an adventure than the danger the adults claimed them to be.

In spite of the racial laws in effect since 1938, local authorities seldom took steps to enforce them. True, aliens were not granted work permits, nor were Jewish children allowed to attend public schools, but other than these restrictions, Italy was still a safe haven for those attempting to escape the German jaws.

San Remo, like Nice, enjoyed delightfully balmy weather year round, and almost every day I went to the beach to swim in the placid blue Mediterranean Sea. Unlike Nice, San Remo had fine, silky sand beaches. Barefoot, I would walk on the sand, feeling its softness caress my feet as the sun bronzed my body.

On those days when I didn't go swimming, I went to the city park. Many local boys gathered there and in a very short time I made a number of friends. We would shoot soccer cards against the wall or race small metal cars weighted down with putty, or run all over town, up and down the stairs of four- and five-story buildings, playing cops and robbers. My favorite of all the games was shooting paper cones through metal or bamboo tubes. I became proficient at it and could soon hit a target from quite a distance. Playing with my friends in the park took a back seat the day the circus set up its tent in town. Upon hearing the circus needed people to work, I eagerly volunteered my services. I was given the job of making sure no one went through the gate without a ticket, and I took my responsibility very seriously. Roaming between the seats, watching for people who had failed to pay the admission price, made me feel official and important.

Determined to do a good job, I usually showed up at my post at least one hour before show time. One day, while making my early rounds, it happened. “Tickets please,” I asked.

The authority in my voice had no impact on these two transgressors. The two men smiled and patted me on the head but kept climbing up the stands.

“Tickets, please!” I shouted.

Again they ignored me. My heart was racing. I dashed down the stands, jumping from bench to bench to report the two intruders. No one was around. The tent would not open for another hour. In the distance I saw a clown practicing his juggling. I ran up to him and grabbed him by the arm.

He freed himself from my grasp with a sudden jerk. “Eh, what do you want?” he grunted.

“You've got to come and arrest these two guys. They came in without a ticket.”

As I ran up the wooden stairs with the clown in tow, I saw them. They were still there, sitting in the last row.

I pointed my finger, an unnecessary gesture, since the two men were the only people there. “There they are!” I shouted.

I had visions of the clown dragging these criminals down in chains, then calling the police to take them to jail. The next day's headline would read: “Enrico, San Remo's hero.” How proud my mother would be. I was even willing to share the spotlight with the clown, who smiled and bowed to the two men, then turned to me with scorn on his painted face.

“These gentlemen are the owners of the circus,” he barked, then whacked me across the back of my head with his large rubber hand. More than my head, the blow stung my ego. Nevertheless, the clown did keep my misapprehension to himself, thus saving my nonpaying job.