DIVINE PROVIDENCE

School on the terrace: "Franchino bald head" is the third from the left. The postcard, with the deleted caption, is signed "Carla", the battle name of Clara, Franco's mother, and was sent to "Ugo Mambretti", false name of Giorgio Finzi, Clara's brother, who was hiding with his grandparents in Valsesia.

Spring 1944.
Eleven years old, of Jewish origin, I was hiding in the Casa Alpina at Motta, a sort of boarding school, but not really, founded and managed by a very capable priest, Don Luigi Re, who had welcomed me knowing full well who I was, disguised as the poor Franco Bernardi (called Franchino, but also "bald head" having recently survived typhus). I was supposedly born in Brindisi and my parents had been cut off by the advance of the allies.A situation very similar to that presented in "Au revoir les enfants" by Louis Malle. Easier because my parents had thought it appropriate for me to be baptized a couple of years earlier and therefore the problem of which religion did not exist.

I had no documents nor ration book and one day came from Campodolcino, a larger village, five hundred meters below, the chief brigadier of the Carabinieri station with an appointee to take information on the poor person.Short questioning, to which I replied perfectly, with an equally perfect Trieste inflection [Translator's Note: the Italian spoken in Trieste and Brindisi have very distinctive inflections, thus the true provenance of Franco could be guessed very easily] ... the good brigadier then turned to don Re asking him to trust him, to tell him the real situation and so on; Don Luigi did not agree, and he [the brigadier] went away unsatisfied, while Don Luigi was full of jitters.

Between Campodolcino and Motta, where a rack railway now travels, there was only a steep trail in the gully. Furthermore it must be known that on the plateau of Motta very often blows a very strong wind. Having clarified this, what happened? That the poor brigadier, who arrived sweating in Motta, and was hit by this wind returning to his Campodolcino station immediately ended up in the hospital with pneumonia: the Divine Providence, listened to Don Luigi. In fact, the substitute of the brigadier, the following day, stamped the practice and everything ended there. The chronicles do not report if the poor brigadier got better, but I really hope so.


THE TREASURE

In the Motta plateau with Giuseppe Boccardo, handyman administrator of the Casa Alpina.

At Casa Alpina we were perhaps twenty guests, of which six were boys between eleven and fourteen. A kind of school had been organized with all pupils together even if belonging to different grades. Don Giovanni Passoni, collaborator of Don Luigi Re, was our teacher of Italian literature, as well as of religion, of course. I remember once asking him what "virgin" meant and he, embarrassed, explained to me that it meant that the virgin Mary was not married. But how, but wasn't she St. Joseph's wife? Yes, but actually ... And the other students, all a little smarter than me, laughing out loud. We were taught math magnificently by, Alberto Traversa, a twenty-year-old Genoese,who was a refugee in Motta in order not to serve the military service in the Republican Socialist army. It served me well in the first years of high school having mastered Euclid's theorem and Pythagoras

One day Don Luigi, together with Alberto Traversa, took three or four of us aside and told us that the property of some people had been buried in the woods and had to be accompanied through the mountains in Switzerland. Jews, of course, as we would learn later. We used to call the outings "a little bit over here and over there," where we maybe left with ten of us and returned with four. It was rumored that the Germans and the fascists were organizing a raid and, for fear that all the adults could be deported but that perhaps the boys could get away with it, wanted to show us the place of the "treasure" to be able to recover it when the war was over. Actually, shortly after September 8th [T.N. 9/8/1943, date of the surrender of Italy to the Allies], there had already been a raid and the Germans had arrived at Motta "with twenty police dogs and two hyenas", said Don Luigi, who used to ... color his stories a little. It appears that there were actually two German Shepherds. One evening, then, in great secrecy, Alberto took us to the pine forest under Casa Alpina and we arrived at a rock where the "treasure" was buried. Exciting is to say little, we almost felt like heroes.        
        
There was no raid in reality. And I haven't heard any news about the treasure. But I believe that, after almost sixty years, I could find the place

THE PARTISANS

Winter 1944-45. Notice the front clamp which, together with the "Kandahar" bindings, were real "ankle breakers"..

We kids slept in the "Ozanam room", a room the width of the entire building of the Casa Alpina, with two rows of boxes at the center with wooden partitions that were not full-height, open in front, perhaps with a closing curtain. There were two doors at the ends and two corridors between the windows and the respective row of boxes. Despite the cold, people slept with their arms over the blankets, below it was not acceptable . Did you have bad thoughts? Don Passoni asked me in confession. And I didn't even know what bad thoughts were …

One morning at dawn we woke up, and I saw Alberto go by with a scary man with a big beard and a rifle of sorts on his shoulder. The partisans had arrived. The scary man was Caio, with a "parabellum" on his shoulder. Caio was, of course, the brother of Tiberio, the commander (T.N. Caio and Tiberius Gracchus were two famous Roman characters); and Pioppo was the political commissioner. After the war we learned that Pioppo was Giovanni Pirelli (T.N.of the car tire factory Pirelli). The weather was the worst, there was a blizzard. Don Luigi welcomed the partisans amicably, but he couldn't wait for them to leave since in Madesimo, half an hour on the mule trail, there were the black brigades [T.N.  fascist paramilitary]. On that occasion we kids learned different partisan songs, some now almost forgotten such as "The Red Guard", but also "The Wind Whistles” that I sing as they would have, and the flag, gosh, was red and not beautiful! After two days the blizzard ceased and the partisans left in the night.        
        
The next morning the fascists arrived, standing in a beautiful row in front of the Casa Alpina. Evidently they knew perfectly well that "the others" had left. Nevertheless they placed a machine gun and then entered. Naturally cordially welcomed by don Re who had to survive and keep us all alive.        
The partisans returned again: I remember a soccer game between us boys and them and the embarrassment for one [of them] who played barefoot and we were afraid to crush his feet. Some time later there was a firefight at the Andossi, between Madesimo and Mt. Spluga and he was killed; the only dead we heard of.

THE SISTER OF MESE

Don Luigi Re, with "Franchino" serving mass.

One of the stories, or legends, told by Don Luigi. Mese, a village next to Chiavenna, was better known for the power plant than for the nun. The nun of Mese had the stigmata. But as if that was not enough, the Devil occasionally thrust into her flesh some filthy, twisted irons that he collected in the sewers. And the poor nun languished in her cell. Don Luigi had gone to see her, and when he entered the cell the Demon, mad with rage at the presence of a priest, or perhaps because he had blessed the nun, had sent the holy water font flying from one side of the room to the other shattering it. Don Luigi had seen the stigmata on the hands and feet and also, "respectfully speaking", the one on her side. The nun had promised don Luigi that when she died she would visit him. The sister died, and at that time we boys slept in the Don Bosco hall instead of the usual Ozanam, and next to the dormitory there were some small rooms in which Don Luigi slept. We were terrified, we were afraid that the nun would get it wrong and that instead of going to see Don Luigi she would come to us…

Franco Isman

 17 maggio 2003 - English translation October 15th