by Amy Harmon
“Afraid of what? They are in Italy now.” Italy was safe. Italians didn’t care if someone was Jewish.
“They have lost their homes, their businesses, their friends. Their whole lives! Mr. Schreiber isn’t even Jewish.”
“So why did he have to leave?”
“Because Mrs. Schreiber is.”
“She is Austrian,” Eva retorted, so sure of herself.
“She is an Austrian Jew. Just like Mamma was. Just like Uncle Felix is. It is illegal under the new laws in Germany for a German to be married to a Jew. Mr. Schreiber was going to be sent to prison even though he was married to Anika long before the laws were passed. So they had to leave.”
The Schreibers were the first. But there had been many more. A steady stream, actually. Some were more open than others, relating horrors that seemed impossible. Uncle Augusto had even scoffed at some of the stories. Privately, of course, and only in conversation with Camillo, who grew increasingly gray during those two years. What couldn’t be denied was that most of the refugees they took in, even if for only a short time, seemed to be in varying states of shock, and there was an ever-present nagging tension among them, as if any moment, the local authorities would swoop in and arrest them.
“I don’t remember them, Eva,” Angelo said softly. “But I do remember there being strangers for a while.”
“For two years, Angelo! Then they just stopped coming. Babbo said they couldn’t get out of Germany anymore.” Eva hadn’t really understood what that meant. She had just shrugged and life went on. But there were no more skittish Jews at the villa. Until now. Now their villa was full of skittish Jews.
Eva clenched her fists and stopped walking, needing every ounce of strength to keep her tears behind her lids. But they seeped out the corners and dribbled down the sides of her face. She turned and blindly walked the other direction, looking for someplace to let them fall without an audience. Angelo followed, a silent shadow, his slightly uneven gait oddly soothing. Eva walked without realizing that she’d known her destination all along.
She found herself just outside the San Frediano gate on Viale Ludovico Ariosto, standing at the entrance to the old Jewish cemetery. Her mother wasn’t buried there. Her Rosselli grandparents weren’t buried there either. The old cemetery had closed in 1880, almost sixty years ago, long before they died.
The tall cypress trees that lined the path leading from the entrance made her feel safe. They always had. Her father had brought her there once, long ago, and showed her where his maternal great-grandparents were buried. They were Nathans, and he was proud of the name. He said Nathan was a Jewish name with an impressive history. Sadly, Eva didn’t remember it. But she loved the cemetery and had come back alone many times, setting her smooth stones on those Nathan headstones, vowing each time to ask Camillo more about her ancestors. But she never did. Very few stones decorated these headstones now. Sixty years was a long time to carry memories and leave pebbles in their place.
She had no stones with her today. No pebbles or pretty rocks. No weight in her pockets and far too much heaviness in her heart. The timeworn headstones reminded her of a mismatched chess set—some stones were fat and curved, others tall and ornate, but most were short and tottering, like ancient pawns. Eva liked to imagine the shape of the markers was a caricature of the person buried there, and she took pride in the royal stature of her ancestors’ monuments. She wove her way to the far corner, to the little bench that someone had erected long ago to sit with long-dead loved ones. Angelo followed, still silent, but he’d pulled off his hat, as if wearing it among the graves was sacrilegious. It was ironic, she thought. Jewish men covered their heads—signifying themselves beneath God—for prayer and religious rituals, but she didn’t tell Angelo.
“What is this place, Eva?” he asked, sitting beside her carefully, his hands in his lap, his hat in his hands, his cane leaning on the bench between them. Eva fought the urge to knock it down. She was tired of things that came between them.
“It’s an old Jewish cemetery.” She kicked at the blanket of fallen leaves and untended grass at her feet and upended a little rock. Leaning down, she retrieved it, brushed the dirt from its surface, and shined it between her palms. Then she stood and placed it on the base of the oldest Nathan headstone and sat back down next to Angelo. He reached for her hand and turned it over so he could see her palm.
“Why did you do that?” Angelo took out his handkerchief and started gently removing the grime from her hands. His tenderness wiped away her anger too. Eva’s lips trembled, and she wanted to lay her head against his shoulder and cry out all her fear and confusion.
“Eva?” he prodded softly, when her answer never came. She swallowed back the feelings in her throat and tried to speak. Her voice was low, barely a whisper, when she finally responded.
“The story Babbo told me is that in ancient times it wasn’t common to mark graves with a headstone or any kind of marker. Jews did it, but they did it to avoid inadvertently stepping or bending over a grave and desecrating it or becoming impure from the body beneath the ground. I don’t know, exactly. It’s a mitzvah.” Eva shrugged, a uniquely Italian shrug that said, “I don’t know, but knowing isn’t very important.”
“What’s a mitzvah?”
“Something—a holy act or tradition—that elevates the mundane to the divine.” Again, the shrug. “So before the days of headstones and markers, every person who walked by the grave added a rock, building it up, so the monument became permanent. I guess eventually someone thought of adding a bigger rock with a name or birth date, so people would know who was buried there. And now? Now we do it as a sign of remembrance.”
“Something that elevates the mundane to the divine,” Angelo murmured. “That’s beautiful.” He was done with her hands, and he gently returned them to her lap, ever respectful, ever careful. Eva didn’t want her hands back. She needed Angelo to hold them tightly, to grip them in his and tell her everything was going to be all right. The emotion swelled again, and her thoughts were so loud, so insistent, that she pressed a trembling hand to her forehead so they wouldn’t escape. But the devastation of the day had peeled back her defenses, and she found herself blurting out all the things she shouldn’t say.
“I thought I would marry you someday, Angelo. Do you know that? I wanted to marry you. But that can’t happen now, can it?”
He gasped but didn’t answer. She finally made herself look at him, and his blue eyes clung to hers. There was awareness there—her words shocked him, but her feelings didn’t.
“That was never going to happen, Eva. In one year, I will be able to receive the Holy Orders, and I will become a priest. I am going to be a priest, Eva. My path is set,” he said firmly, but there was tension in the set of his lips, and the hand he raised to her cheek shook slightly. She pulled away in disgust, brushing at his hand like he was a persistent fly. Her feelings kept bouncing back and forth between tenderness and outrage.
“No. It can’t happen because I’m a Jew. And it’s now against the law for Catholics to marry Jews. It’s against the law for me to love you, Angelo. It should make it so much easier for you now.”
“What are you talking about, Eva?” Angelo kept his voice neutral, soft, like he was trying to calm a fretful child. But she wasn’t a child, as Angelo was well aware.
“I’ve seen the way you look at me, Angelo. You want to be a priest, but you love me.”
“Eva!” The word was like a whip, and Eva flinched. “You can’t say things like that.” He stood abruptly, his cane gripped in his hands. “We have to go. It will be dark soon, and after a day like today, your father will wonder where you’ve gone.”
Eva stood, but she wasn’t finished. “Babbo says so many boys become priests because of family pressures. Because they can get an education they may otherwise not get. He worried that you were forced into the seminary because your father and your grandparents wanted you to go and because you never felt like you had a home.”
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��It wasn’t like that for me, Eva. You know that. You know being a priest is what I want.”
“But you were a child.” Her voice was hesitant. “How could you have known what it would cost?”
“It has cost me very little compared to what it has given me.” His eyes were so clear, so guileless, yet so fierce, that it was all she could do to hold his gaze.
“God makes me strong. He gives me courage. He gives me peace. He gives me purpose.” His voice was filled with conviction.
“And he can’t give you those things unless you’re a priest?” Eva asked sadly.
“No. No, Eva. I don’t think he can. Not in the same way.” He held out his arm—a peace offering—and Eva slipped her hand through it, letting him lead her out of the cemetery. They picked their way among the graves, and Eva was suddenly glad for his arm. Her anger and despair had boiled over and left her cold and weak, tired. She numbly placed one foot in front of the other until Angelo spoke again.
“I would have been a soldier. A pilot. If I’d been born with two good legs, I would have been a pilot. I’ve dreamed of flying since I could walk. Maybe it’s because I couldn’t run like the other boys. You don’t need to run if you can fly. Now, with war in the air and Mussolini passing these insane laws, I’m grateful for my bad leg. I’m grateful I won’t have to drop bombs and fight for things I don’t believe in.”
“Is the Catholic Church the only thing you believe in?”
Angelo sighed. “Eva, I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”
“Do you believe in people? Do you believe in me?” Her voice was tired; she really wasn’t trying to fight. Not anymore. Fighting with Angelo was like kicking a wall—she only ended up hurting herself.
“I put my faith in God. Not people,” he said softly, stubbornly, and Eva wanted to slap him.
“But God works through people. Doesn’t he?” Eva insisted.
He didn’t answer but waited for her to continue, looking between her face and the road they walked along, the lengthening shadows giving them a sense of privacy. He hadn’t even pulled his arm away, and Eva let herself cling to it.
“My father used to believe in Italy. Uncle Augusto even believed in Fascism. Fabia believes in the Pope, Santino believes in hard work, and you believe in the church. Do you know what I believe in, Angelo? I believe in my family. I believe in my father. I believe in Santino and Fabia. And I believe in you. The people I love most in the world. Love is the only thing I believe in.”
“Don’t cry, Eva. Please,” Angelo whispered, and his voice broke in distress. Eva hadn’t even realized she was. She raised a hand to her face and wiped at the moisture that clung to her cheeks.
“These laws are going to destroy all of us, Angelo. It’s only going to get worse. I believe that too.”
1939
29 June, 1939
Confession: I’ve never hated anyone before. Not a single soul. But I’m learning.
There are more Racial Laws. Angelo raced home when he heard, only to find us completely unaware of what had transpired. He became the bearer of bad news—there is never good news anymore, it seems.
Jews can no longer practice their trade among non-Jews. Doctors, lawyers, journalists—all the trained professions. In one day, they lost their livelihoods. And that isn’t all. We are banned from popular resorts and vacation spots. We can’t spend our holidays at the beaches, the mountains, and the spas. We can’t put advertisements or death notices in the newspapers. We can’t publish books or give public lectures. We aren’t even allowed to own radios.
I laughed at that one and said to Angelo, “We can’t own radios? What about electric razors? Babbo loves his new electric razor—don’t get too attached, Babbo! What’s next? Washing machines? Telephones?”
Angelo didn’t laugh. Instead, he stared down at the decree in his hands.
“You can still own a telephone. But your names will no longer be listed in the telephone directories, and you are barred entrance from certain public buildings.” No one had laughed after that. The absurdity of it all was the most insulting part. And the insults never seem to end.
Eva Rosselli
CHAPTER 3
VIENNA
“My father won’t leave his apartment. He says the last time he did, a German soldier made him scrub the sidewalk. The bleach burned his hands, and he can’t play his violin.” Uncle Felix threw himself onto the sofa and buried his face in his hands.
“They stormed his house and took his art, his valuables. He is living in my old bedroom, with nothing but his violin—which he is lucky to have—and he is worried that he can’t play because of the sores on his hands. There is a German commandant living in his apartment, sleeping in his bed, eating off his plates, and sitting at his table! But he still thinks he will be able to wait it out. He still thinks it will all blow over. Many of his friends have already been arrested. Musicians, artists, writers, academics, taken to a work camp! How long will they last, Camillo?” Felix wailed the question from behind his hands.
Eva’s father just shook his head. Uncle Felix didn’t really need him to give any estimation on the life expectancy of the imprisoned Austrian artisans. They both knew.
“Every day they are arresting Jews. I have to go get him. I have to get him out of Austria. I have to bring him here.”
“Felix . . . you can’t,” Camillo reasoned gently. “They are deporting Jews from Austria, not letting more come in! If you are lucky you will be turned away at the checkpoint. If you are not, you will be detained and deported. There is no scenario where you will reach Otto and be able to get him out. I am doing all I can. Otto has to apply for a visa, though. He must wait in line like all the others and show them his passport. He must tell them he has family and a place to stay here in Italy.” Camillo had been over this time and again with his aging father-in-law, but Otto Adler was weary and stubborn, and the incredibly long lines outside the emigration office were intimidating. Many waiting in line were often subjected to the kind of indignities that he had suffered recently. Scrubbing paint from a wall or political slogans from a sidewalk, or licking the cobblestones, or picking up horse dung with their bare hands.
“I have told him. But he won’t listen,” Felix mourned.
On March 12, 1938, Austria had welcomed Hitler with open arms. Anschluss, they called it. Union. But Otto Adler said the word was just Nazi propaganda to reframe a forced incorporation of Austria into Nazi Germany.
Otto Adler had watched it all from his apartment high above the street, a street that was thick with thousands of people waving the crooked cross, raising their arms, and calling out to the motorcade that moved slowly down the street. It was a military parade, with Adolf Hitler himself standing in an open command car waving and acknowledging the jubilant crowds that were welcoming him, the Austrian-born conqueror, into their beautiful city. It was like nothing Otto Adler had ever seen before. A parade, but more than that. The cheering crowds treated Hitler like a savior or messiah.
Otto was not impressed, and he refused to be part of the celebration. He turned his back on the parade, resuming his practice. But the onlookers were as thick as flies, and the sound from the street seeped through the windows and the walls, making it impossible for him to drown them out, even with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major singing from his strings.
“Sieg heil, Sieg heil,” they intoned, throwing off his rhythm and making him curse. He shrugged and changed his tempo to keep time with the chanting. He was good at adapting.
“That is the problem with so many Jews,” he told his son in a letter. “They don’t adapt. They haven’t assimilated. But I have. I have been welcomed into the arms of the highest society. I have played for royalty and dined with dignitaries. I am not afraid of the little Führer. I will adapt, and as long as I have my music, I am happy. I don’t need much.”
Still, he hated to see Austria bow to the Germans. All of Austria lay prostrate, letting Hitler roll right over them with his tanks and fi
ery words, and they celebrated the invasion.
Eight months later, and mere days before the Racial Laws were passed in Italy, Nazi Stormtroopers and Hitler Youth implemented and carried out violent pogroms against the Jews. In cities throughout Austria and Germany, rioters looted and vandalized Jewish businesses and homes. They burned nine hundred synagogues and damaged or destroyed seven thousand Jewish businesses. Instigators attacked, spit on, and threw Jewish men and women into the streets, killing ninety-one of them. Police rounded up, arrested, and sent thirty thousand Jewish men to concentration camps. And when it was all over, the Nazis presented the Jewish community with a bill for the damages, claiming they had caused it to happen.
All this terror had a beautiful name. Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. Otto Adler wrote to Camillo and told him he could have made a fortune. Ostrica would have had business for a year just replacing the smashed windows and the shattered glass in the streets. Then he’d confessed and told Felix he was finally afraid. He wasn’t adapting anymore.
“How can you compromise with people who don’t want you to exist? They want us to disappear. I can’t adapt to death!”
1938 had been a very bad year to be Jewish. 1939 was even worse.
Angelo went home from the seminary that day, expecting to accompany Camillo, Felix, and his grandparents to Eva’s concert, only to find that she’d been asked to resign her position and leave the orchestra. No explanation. Just dismissal. She hadn’t really needed an explanation. The reason was obvious. Another member was dismissed as well, the Jewish cello player she’d dated off and on the year before.