A Child Al Confino: The True Story of a Jewish Boy and His Mother in Mussolini's Italy (40 page)

“It's a good idea he left,” Mamma said.

Filomena was hiding in her own apartment and had taken from us the only life link we had with the world: the radio. Having lost touch with the other internees had dropped us further into a black hole.

Dora came bearing dreadful news. In the middle of the night, a German patrol had broken down the door where the Kamplers lived. Someone must have informed the Germans. Their landlord reported that just before the patrol entered the house, Gusti and David jumped from their window one flight up and escaped in their pajamas.

Dora was wringing her hands. “
Madonna mia
! Who could have reported them? Such a terrible thing!”

“Dora, promise me one thing,” Mamma said in a veiled voice. “If anything happens to me, you will take care of Enrico.”

Dora started to wail. “
Gesu Cristo mio
. What can happen?”

“They could round up all the Jews. There is no way we can jump from the here.”

“No one knows you live here,” Dora said.

“Everybody knows we live here.”

As I listened, I felt my insides burning. I lost track of how many days I had not left our apartment and suddenly realized that staying inside could become an inescapable trap. My words exploded: “I have to go out! I don't care where, but I've got to go out.”

“We must stay put,” Mamma said. “Going out is worse.”

Dora hugged us both. “I left the children alone. I have to go. Enrico, you listen to your mother! You hear?”

The room remained wrapped in silence for the longest time. I needed some protection, some comfort. “Would you pray with me?” I finally asked.

Mother took my hand as she guided me in a prayer. “Oh dear God, give us peace, guard over us and protect us from the Germans. Please forgive us for not being as observant as we should be. And please protect the rest of our family.
Umen
.” As she whispered these words, I pictured my father's unique waddling coming toward me on a sidewalk in Vienna. I saw my
Opapa
performing his morning prayers, my grandmother preparing a Friday supper, my
Omama
adjusting the hair-piece on her head. I wanted all of them to be safe and in His care.

For the rest of the day, I tried but was unable to read my book. Visions of jail cells, torture chambers and death crowded my head. I saw Papa in his gray, double-breasted suit,
Opapa
with his sculpted white beard, Grandmother in her kitchen,
Omama
, and Aunt Stefi. I remembered the Seder in Poland, my silver watch. The happy and trouble-free days in Vienna, the coffee house the small birthday cakes I had baked with Millie.

No longer did single soldiers stroll in the village. Now they marched in twos or threes, their heavy boots pounding the dusty road, a dreadful reminder of the scary echoes in the Vienna railway station. With each sound of a passing motorcycle, my nerves tightened. And Mother's looks failed to calm my nerves.

“Mamma, do you think William Pierce will point us out?”

“Everything is possible. He reported Giorgio Kleinerman,” she said. Aren't you hungry?”

I had not eaten a full meal in two days. Food was the farthest thing from my mind. “No, Mamma. I'm really not hungry.”

“
Hasele
, you should eat something. I'll make you something special.”

“Like what?”

“I could try a
palatchinka
. I have a little flour left. Would you like that?”

“Oh
Mutti
, I sure would love that.”

Except for John Howell, who had brought the ominous news of the German list request, we had not seen any of the other internees. For days we didn't know if anyone else ventured out. We had become reclusive. The safety and protection we had felt in this primitive village were suddenly gone. Vienna came to mind, the five days in March 1938 when I was also kept inside the house. I worried whether what happened then was going to happen all over again. Where could we go? Would we have to start running again?

I grew up rapidly during those September days, never to be a child again.

With every passing day, our lives became more chaotic. Mother ignored the routine reporting to the police. We didn't eat a cooked meal, only that which could be eaten raw. But then, neither of us thought much about food.

While the days were bad, the nights were worse. The slightest noise awakened me. “Mamma, Mamma! I think I hear footsteps on the stairs. They're here!” I muttered.

Mother would come running from her room and place her ear against the door leading to the corridor. “There is no one there,
Schatzele
” I heard relief in her voice. “Go to sleep,
Hasele
.”

Living in constant fear and unable to sleep through the night distorted my ability to judge the passing of time. What I thought had been weeks were only days. The bed became my escape. Nightmares followed nightmares. I relived the final moments of Raffaele's father. I saw the dead body, but it was not his father, it was my father I saw. I pushed myself through the crowd and, as I reached the bed, I found that it was my mother who was lying there. In shock, I looked through the room. Those were not the townspeople I knew. These were soldiers in black uniforms, high boots, and the dreaded red and black armbands, glaring down and leering at me.

The apprehension of finding my mother dead in the next room kept me from opening my eyes for the longest time. When I finally did, I eased myself into her room. With more force than I wanted, I shook her still body. “Mamma! Mamma!” I shouted.

Startled, she sat up. “Yes? What is it,
Schatzele
?”

“I just had this terrible dream that you were dead.”

My trembling was visible. Mamma pulled me close to her. “It was just a dream.”

During that period I had many such dreams. Often I saw my Papa dead. Shot! Hanged! Frozen! I struggled to chase those thoughts from my mind. On the few occasions when I did, I saw
Omama
,
Opapa
and Aunt Stefi. Every morning and every afternoon, Allied squadrons of big planes flew overhead to drop their bombs on Naples. We had become so used to seeing the formations of those large birds that I stopped looking skyward.

An endless flow of people came from the direction of Avellino. Dressed in modern clothes, wearing leather shoes (not
zoccoli
), we knew they were not on a pilgrimage to Montevergine. Mamma wanted to know where these people were coming from but would not go out of the house to ask. The German army stayed in town and neither Mother nor I dared venture on to the street. Standing back from the balcony, we watched the mass of humanity tramp through the village, wondering why they were all walking up the mountain.

There was hardly anything to do. We ate little during that period and were grateful to have an ample supply of water to drink.

“We will do without washing ourselves,” Mamma said, “but we can use a little for brushing our teeth.”

And so, twenty days crawled by. Twenty painful days.

Then one morning I looked at Mother's face. It looked drawn and wet from crying. I caressed her hair and wondered what was going through her head. Suddenly I saw how beautiful she was as she announced, “We're going up to Montevergine.”

Mother had recovered her ability to think. Although this meant we were on the run once more, I felt a great sense of relief. She was in charge again! My hallucinations ceased!

That morning in late September 1943, rushing to pack a few essentials into a small bag and without the required permit from the
carabinieri
, we prepared to flee Ospedaletto.

Montevergine

F
lying fortresses droned overhead as we walked out of the house. We passed through the piazza and continued up the narrow gravel path to become part of a flood of people who seemed driven by their own individual fears. We mingled into this endless column of humanity. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of refugees had walked from surrounding towns and villages: whole families, infants carried by siblings, grandparents struggling up that arduous path and parents carrying what they were able to salvage at the last moment. We all walked at the same pace, bodies touching bodies, bringing us the small comfort of shared misery. The scraping of feet on the gravel path mixed with the sounds of battle in the valley below.

“Does anybody know what's going on?” Mamma spoke. “We haven't heard a news bulletin in days.”

“The Americans have suffered a bloodbath in Salerno,” a voice in the crowd replied. Salerno was less than twenty miles away.

“Salerno? When did the Americans get to Salerno?” Mother asked.

“Haven't you heard? They landed three weeks ago,” someone from the crowd responded.

“Are you coming from Salerno?”

“We're coming from there,” a woman joined in the shouting.

“Can you tell me what's happening?”

Twenty years of intimidation by the Fascist dictatorship had shaped the people's behaviors, but now the concern of being overheard and denounced by one's neighbor seemed gone. People were eager to talk to anyone, even to strangers.

“There is shooting all over. We just ran away. We left everything behind.”

A limping old man vented his anger. “
Che lo pozzino ammazzare
,
quel benedetto Mussolini
.” As was often the custom in this part of the country, the man had combined dialect with pure Italian. “The Allies are going to beat the crap out of the Germans. I once believed in Fascism and fought for the bastard in Ethiopia. Even lost a foot. Now look what he did to us. May he rot in prison. They should give him castor oil like he did to Matteotti.” Giacomo Matteotti was head of the Socialist Party at the time Mussolini came to power. His strong opposition to Mussolini brought on his death in 1924.

Someone else in the walking crowd aired his frustrations. “For years I've been afraid to open my mouth,” he shouted. “It has poisoned my spirit.” Then, making up for lost time, he began yelling at the top of his lungs, “May the Fascists rot in hell!”

Many applauded. Mother asked more questions while we made slow progress up the congested pass. The people, attempting to hurry the pace, pushed and shoved and created such confusion on the narrow, overcrowded trail that they accomplished the opposite. Our energies, which we needed to climb, were dissipated by our efforts to keep from stumbling off the sides of the path.

“Don't push! Slow down! Let's not kill each other!” Someone made an attempt at restoring order.

The trail narrowed and became even steeper as we approached our destination. The wider mass of human beings was forced to squeeze to half its size, making our last twenty minutes of the tedious trudge even more difficult. My nostrils were filled with dust. My eyes were burning. I looked at
Mutti
and was proud at how well she was holding up.

The approach to the summit was signaled by a surge of energy emanating from the people ahead of us. Suddenly we reached the top and came out of the tree shadows into the midday sun's heat. We had reached the monastery high on that mountain crest.

The picnic to celebrate Pietro's restored freedom had been in June of the previous year. Yet now, overwhelmed by different emotions, I could hardly recognize the place. So many people filled every available space.

Quickly my mother, with me in tow, approached the protective wall that surrounded the monastery and walked through the gate heading to the courtyard. Mamma stopped a passing monk. “Where can we stay, father?”

Without slowing his walk, with his arm pointing toward the building, he replied, “Just go inside and find a room.”

With fresh energy, Mother grabbed me by the hand and together we traversed the large courtyard. Facing us in the corner was the entrance to the church enclosed on each side by a large, two-story stone structure. We entered a side door of the building and, pushing ahead of the crowd, rushed up one flight of stairs, then down a long corridor.

Dozens of doorways opened into the corridor and Mamma, peeking her head into every opening, asked, “Is there space for two?”

“No,
Signora
. You have to go all the way down the corridor,” one voice replied.

People were passing us by. “Let's run,” said Mamma. Holding my hand, she pulled me down the narrow hallway past the numerous cubicles and around its ninety-degree turn. The crowd had not yet reached here.

“Is there space for two of us?” Mamma asked.

“Sure. Come in,” a woman answered.

The dimension of the barren cell was defined by the size of the bunk beds set against two opposing walls. About the smallest room I had ever seen. There was no mattress or a pillow. The double-tier bunks were bare planks of wood. Even the entrance door was missing. After a careful look, I saw no sign of hinges and realized there had never been a door. A solitary chair rested against the far wall and above hung a dusty wooden cross. A single small window, way up high on the wall facing the entrance, allowed just enough light to give the alcove a sinister appearance. A tiny light bulb, dangling from a bare and dust-encrusted electric cord, reminiscent of the air-raid shelter in San Remo, hung from the high ceiling. At night the light, with its faint glow, would have the impossible task of relieving the absolute darkness.

A young couple, clutching each other, sat to the side on one of the lower bunks. We sat on the wooden plank on the opposite wall.

“
Buon giorno
! Where did you come from?” Mamma asked.

“Naples,” the man replied. The sadness in his voice was reflected on his face. His eyes were sunken and vacant in an otherwise young-looking face. His hair was uncombed and the bottoms of his pants, as well as his shoes, were covered with dried mud.

Naples was more than twenty miles away. “How did you get here?”

The slim, young woman started to cry. “Over the mountains. We've walked all night. We lost everyone in our family during the last air raid. It was hell.”

“I am so sorry,” Mamma said.