Don Luigi Re in reality and in iconography (from the book by Enrico Bertazzi)

The righteous, more completely "Righteous among the nations", is the honorary title that the State of Israel gives to the "Gentiles", that is to the non-Jews who, with serious personal risk, have helped to save even a single Jew from the Shoah, from the Nazi extermination. And who is recognized Righteous receives a medal, his name is inscribed together with the now 20,000 present in the Garden of the Righteous at the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem and in his honor a tree is planted, a symbol of an eternal memory.        

Don Luigi Re, was certainly righteous, and I truly regret never having done anything for having this title, which has existed since 1963, officially given to him. Don Luigi Re, a big, mild, Milanese, prone to exaggeration, in the good sense of the term, founder in the '20s of the Casa Alpina at Motta (above Madesimo, in Valchiavenna), in the difficult times after the 8 September (T.N. 9/8/1943, date of the surrender of Italy to the Allies) welcomed and saved several Jews, but also young people who had escaped the compulsory military service of the Republic of Salò. Don Luigi Re, was certainly righteous, and I truly regrets never having done anything for having this title, which has existed since 1963, officially given to him. Don Luigi Re, a big, mild, Milanese, prone to exaggeration, in the good sense of the term, founder in the '20s of the Casa Alpina at Motta (above Madesimo, in Valchiavenna), in the difficult times after the 8 September welcomed and saved several Jews, but also young people who had escaped the compulsory military service of the Republic of Salò.

I was a little boy of just over ten years, fresh from typhoid caught in Carvico (province of Bergamo) where my family had taken refuge, when I had been entrusted in a totally sudden way by my father, who knew him only by name, when, in October 1943, going by bus from Chiavenna to Madesimo, he had seen a German checkpoint: "Are you Don Re?" "Yes, that's me." "I give you this child. If I can I will come tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. If he does not see me he will have news after the war." He simply said "All right", he had understood everything, and he had not hesitated a moment. And I, a chick with a "bald head", still very weak, had to walk from Madesimo to Motta with this unknown big man who, having arrived on the Motta plateau, in view of the Casa Alpina went ahead having many things to attend to telling me to catch up with him.

"Franchino" with Boccardo, administrator and handyman of the Casa Alpina, in the plain of Motta

Don Luigi knew who I was and knew perfectly well the risks he was facing, but he did not need to get begged. Besides, I was not the first Jew who passed through Casa Alpina, I know of some families who had arrived and then, with the trips "a little here and there" as we called them, that is, straddling the border on the surrounding mountains, had crossed to Switzerland.
One evening, in great secrecy, some of us kids guests of Casa Alpina had been brought into the woods by Alberto Traversa, a twenty year old, I think, in hindsight, escaped from the mandatory military enrollment into the "Repubblica Sociale Italiana", who taught us magnificently mathematics. It was rumored that there would soon be a major raid by the SS and the "Republicans" and, fearing that the adults could be arrested, but with the hope that the kids could survive, they wanted to show them the place where the "the treasure" of those who had escaped to Switzerland was buried: at the foot of a boulder which I believe I should still be able to recognize!         
There had already been a raid just before my arrival at Motta: 200 SS with 20 dogs and 2 hyenas, Don Luigi used to tell, and it seems that two German Shepherds were indeed there. But this time it was a false alarm and there had been no raid. But the excitement of the "treasure" had been great.

"Franchino" altar boy at a first communion

Dear and good Don Luigi, I was at Motta entrusted to him from October 1943 until 25 April, 1945, with my mother who sometimes came to visit pretending to be a family friend; a situation very similar to that represented by Louis Malle in the movie "Au Revoir Les Enfants” (Goodbye Children), but I had the great advantage of having been baptized in 1942, as the infamous racial laws prescribed in order to be able to be enrolled in a private Catholic school, I had not previously had a religious education (it is enough to mention that on the first day of school at the Jewish school in Trieste I had been sent with a ham sandwich for a snack ...) and I did not therefore have preclusions for the Catholic religion. Mass every morning, altar boy, indeed great master of ceremonies with the red surplice on important occasions, rosary and blessing every evening, with Rosina (the cloakroom lady) and Mr. Magri (the cook) who were singing with conviction “Canta il me-erlo sul furme-ento” rather than “tantum ergo sacramentum”! (T.N., they mangled the Latin words into nonsensical Italian words that sounded similarly)

Franco Isman

  27 gennaio 2008 - English translation October 17th