His eyes began to tear when he mentioned his parents, David and Rebecca. He described instances of how his father was forced to give up all their possessions, including the store and their apartment, get down on his knees and scrub the sidewalk in front of the store with a toothbrush while passersby jeered and spit on him. After regaining his composure, he revealed that both parents had been murdered in a concentration camp.
He emphasized that the Jewish community had never given up and had been able to keep their faith was by remembering the philosophy of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzatto, the 18th-century Italian Rabbi known as the Ramchal who in his sermons reminded Jews to that even though it might seem as if their hearts were being stripped of all meaning, defeat is never inevitable. This provided a great deal of comfort and solace to them in the darkest of times.
Adalio was only 15 when Benito Mussolini, “Il Duce“ allied Italy with Hitler and declared war on Britain and France. With the approval of the Manettis, he joined “La Resistenza“, delivering messages between the various resistance groups that had sprung up in both Tuscany and the surrounding area. He travelled by bicycle and whenever he was stopped by troops would pretend to be asthmatic. They were more interested in catching adults than young sick boys. However, there was an additional danger lurking. The Nazis had embarked on a mandatory roundup of all males in their late teens and early 20s and sent them to work in German factories. Anywhere between 20% to 30% had been caught and shipped off to work for the Reich. Those who remained hidden in the countryside volunteered for the various resistance groups.
The Vichy militia, the “Free Guard”, with their notorious uniforms of blue jackets and pants, brown shirts, and blue berets – our French brothers, he said – were the worst of the worst. Some people consider them worse than the Gestapo because of where they had originally grown up. They rounded up Jews and communists along with whomever else the Gestapo wanted to be collected. They were not only evil and spineless and cowardly, but also traitorous.
With that he spit on the ground, then thinking of what Gina might say, wiped it away with the sole of his shoe.
He told us a story of a vintner and his family, who had sheltered a resistance cell in their barn for two nights. The next day a militia squad arrived at the vineyard to question them. They put them in separate rooms, but the couple continued to deny everything. The militia man didn’t believe them and beat the husband who still refused to change his story. Exasperated, they brought the wife to him, grabbed a carving knife, held her left wrist down on the kitchen table and threatened to cut off her fingers if the husband didn’t tell the truth. This was too much and he admitted to having hid the resistance members. The militia men were not satisfied. They grabbed the wife’s left wrist again, slamming it down on the table, and with the carving knife, hacked off her left pinky and ring fingers. They took the finger, still with the wedding ring and put it in front of the husband‘s face. Then shot him in the head before leaving. Adalio had seen the stump of flesh on the wife’s left hand. That was the Free Guard, he said, again angrily spitting on the ground.
