To Foster’s surprise, the door was not locked. Pushing it open, he went inside, expecting to see a large room that was sumptuously furnished befitting a king.4 But the room, which was of modest size and plainly decorated, was unremarkable – except that it looked as if someone had lived in it recently. The card on the door was misleading; it was not a bedroom, but a sitting room. Books, with markers in them, were stacked on the tables and bundles of letters, which had been sorted, as if someone intended to file them, lay in piles on the floor. A jug of water and a glass, half full, stood on one of the side tables, and a well-worn cardigan hung over a chair.
By the window there was a large round table covered with a velvet cloth. Crossing over to it, Foster stopped in front of the photographs. Upwards of thirty were arranged on the table; photographs both large and small, all in silver frames. He could see they were family portraits as the same faces featured, though at different ages, and in different settings. One face drew his eye.5 It was that of a tall, middle-aged man with an aquiline profile and a neat moustache. He had two duelling scars on his left cheek. In one of the photographs, he was engrossed in conversation with Adolf Hitler; in another, he was shaking hands with Benito Mussolini.
There were other pictures of Hitler, taken in different locations. Always, the same tall man was discernible in the background, standing at a discreet distance, just a few steps behind the Führer. His close proximity to Hitler suggested he was a trusted adviser. But who was he? He was not dressed in uniform. Was he a diplomat, or a civil servant? Foster wondered. And was he the owner of the castle?
He picked up the photographs carefully and examined them, one by one. There were no inscriptions of any kind; nothing to say where or when they had been taken. There were just two informal portraits of the man. One was in a family group. He and his wife and their four children – two sons and two daughters – were posing for the camera on top of a mountain. In the second, he was standing on a jetty by a lake; wearing a pair of swimming trunks, he had his arms around a young girl, aged about twelve, and his head was tilted back, laughing. From the family portrait, Foster could see the girl was his daughter.
Then he turned to the other photographs. They were mostly of two young boys. There were pictures of them as babies, lying cradled in the arms of a pretty, fair-haired woman, and later, when they were a little older, of the boys together. They were angelic-looking, with long blond curls and bright, smiling eyes. In one photograph, they were sitting happily on the laps of two German soldiers. Foster recognized the setting: the picture had been taken on the bench in the walled garden outside. Curious, he spent some minutes trying to decipher the family relationships. The boys’ mother – ten or so years on – was the young girl who featured in the photograph taken on the jetty by the lake. In which case, her father – the man with Hitler – was the boys’ grandfather. The girl had married a dashing-looking Italian officer. In the photograph taken at their wedding, his distinctive hat, adorned with plumes and cockades, indicated that he was an officer in one of the smart cavalry regiments. Oddly, there were no photographs of the boys with their father.
Foster went over to the door, which connected to another room. It led into a nursery. It had two beds and a cot in it and he assumed it was where the two boys in the photographs had slept. Paper mobiles, decorated with baby elephants, hung from the ceiling. On one of the beds, a teddy bear lay, propped up on a pillow; the beads of its eyes were missing and it had a flattened, bedraggled look about it.
After a quick glance round, he went back into the main room. Among the hundreds of books lining its walls, he spotted a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.6 Taking it down off the shelf, he was surprised to see the pages were unread. He was also surprised to discover that many of the books were in English. There were volumes of Hansard and numerous editions of Strand magazine, one of which contained a prescient article by Winston Churchill, entitled ‘The Truth About Hitler’, published in 1935.
As Foster was leafing through a guidebook of historic towns in Germany – towns the British had obliterated – he heard a sound outside.7 Going over to the window, he saw a man working in the garden. He was getting on in years and wore mechanic’s overalls which were blue and smeared with grease. He had a proprietorial air about him and was busy cutting back the ivy that had enveloped a wall of the house.
Straight away, Foster put the book aside and went out to talk to him. At last, here was someone who might be able to tell him about the castle’s invisible inhabitants.
6.
The man introduced himself as Nonino. He came from a nearby village, he said, and he had been the butler at the castle for fifty-seven years.1 The old countess had taken him on when he was eleven years old. He had started out as a coachman, riding on the footplate of the family’s Landau carriage.2 Then, in the 1880s, he had become head of the household. It was a time when many guests had stayed at the castle. Back then, he told Foster, his duties had included looking after the horses and the carriages, polishing the great Venetian chandeliers and, in the evening, after dinner, if there were no musicians to play from the battlements of the castle, he led a choir, singing old Friuli songs.
He announced proudly that he had served three generations of the family. His first name was Giuseppe, but the family called him by his surname. They said it was easier to pronounce and sounded more friendly. Foster was hoping this would lead to stories about the current generation, but the old man shied away from the present and returned to a yet more remote past. The family’s name was Pirzio-Biroli, he said, and they were descended from the Savorgnans, one of the most powerful aristocratic families in northern Italy. After settling at the castle in the 1200s, they had ruled over Friuli for centuries, siding with the Venetian Republic against the Austrian Empire. They had owned many properties. The fortresses from which they had defended the region stretched in a 60-mile line, all the way to Venice. Then there were the palaces, where he had served as a young man. The Palazzo Savorgnan, overlooking the Cannaregio Canal in Venice; the Palazzo Brazzà in Udine; and another, a few steps from the Trevi Fountain, in Rome.
He stopped talking for a moment and looked up at the Union Jack flying above the ruins of the castle. Then, shaking his head, he said he was sorry to say that all sorts of flags had flown there in his time.3 In the last war, the Austrian Army had occupied the castle, which had been disastrous for the family. One night in the winter of 1917, after helping himself to the wine cellar, one of the officers had fallen asleep leaving a brazier burning and the house had burned to the ground.4 The Royal Standard of the House of Savoy had also flown above the castle. This was in 1941, when the King of Italy had briefly used Brazzà as a military headquarters. After that, the Germans had arrived and hoisted the swastika. But the old Countess Cora di Brazzà Slocomb had always flown the Stars and Stripes. She was American – a wealthy heiress from New Orleans. Gesturing towards the house, he said it was her money that had paid for the new villa after the old one had been destroyed in the fire.
An American countess? Foster was taken aback by this unexpected piece of information.5 Immediately, he wanted to know what her relationship was to the man he had seen in the photographs with Hitler and Mussolini. Had she betrayed her country by siding with the Fascists? But he did not want to quiz the old man. It would be inappropriate to ask awkward questions. Intelligence personnel from the War Crimes Branch of the US Army were already in the area and it was their job to investigate suspected war criminals and collaborators.
‘Where is the family now?’ he asked instead.
The old man looked away. A long silence followed before he answered. Then, quietly, his voice trembling, he said they were all gone now; that in recent years, a series of tragedies had befallen the family.6 Briefly, he told Foster what had happened. The old countess, who had taken him on when he was a boy, was dead. She had died the year before in a lunatic asylum in Rome. Her only daughter was also dead – from heart failure at the age of fifty. Count Detalmo, who had inherited
Brazzà from his mother, had vanished in the autumn of 1943 when the German troops had occupied the castle. Then, on 27 September 1944, a date he would never forget, the Gestapo had arrested the count’s wife and their two sons aged two and four.
He pointed to a window behind them and said it was where the countess and the children had been living when they were taken away. Then he beckoned Foster to follow him.
Crossing the garden in front of the house, he spoke fondly of the countess.7 Her name was Fey and she was beautiful. Slim, with fair hair and bright blue eyes, she was German, of course. But una bella tedesca – a lovely German. She had first come to the castle in the winter of 1940, after her marriage to Detalmo. A year later, Corrado – little Corradino – the eldest boy, was born. Then, in January 1943, Robertino. The boys were the spitting image of their mother – fair-haired and blue-eyed. Beautiful boys.
He paused in front of a wooden bench that stood in the shade of an umbrella pine. The bench looked towards the mountains and was framed by roses, which were trained against the white wall behind. He told Foster that it was where Fey liked to sit in the mornings. It was her favourite place in the garden. After the count left, he had helped her with the running of the estate. In the summer months, they had met here for an hour every morning to discuss the silk harvesting and the crops they were going to plant. They were a team, he said.
He walked on, heading towards the entrance to the castle. Returning to the story of her arrest, he became increasingly agitated. To begin with, there had been no trouble with the Germans.8 On the contrary, the soldiers occupying the castle adored the children. They were always playing with them. Then, one evening, the order had come through from Berlin. Immediately, the colonel in charge informed Fey that she and the boys were to be taken to Germany. They must be ready to leave at dawn the following day. But he said there was no need to worry. They were only going for a few weeks. They would be back soon.
At the main gate to the castle, with its stone ball finials and ornate fretwork, the old man stopped and drew a long line in the gravel with his foot. It was where everyone had gathered to say goodbye, he said: the household staff, friends and neighbours, and the farmhands and their families.9 Fey had only been given permission to bring along as much as she could carry, and he and the other staff had spent the night helping her prepare for the journey. They had packed salamis and hams, and tins of condensed milk for the boys. The army doctor, stationed with the German troops, even gave her 300 marks, which he told her to sew into the lining of her coat. At the memory of Fey struggling to the car with the cases, and the two boys, muffled up for the journey, his eyes filled with tears. They were lost now. He did not think he would ever see them again.
With tears now rolling down his face, he said that one of the German soldiers had told him what had happened to them after they left. Their first night had been spent at the railway station in Villach, sleeping on the floor with refugees.10 Then, when they got to Innsbruck, the SS had arrested Fey and taken the children from her. The soldier said they had given the boys false names and hidden them in a place where no one would find them – an orphanage somewhere in Germany, he thought. Fey had spent time in the Gestapo prison at Innsbruck, then the SS had moved her on. This was all the soldier could tell him. Six months had passed now and all trace of her had been lost.
Looking around at the idyllic scene, Foster found it hard to believe what he was hearing.11 Out in the fields, there was a light mist and the cypress trees rose through it, their tops lit by the last rays of the sun. Over by the barn, teams of oxen were bringing in sacks of meal. The cream-coloured beasts stood peacefully and patient-eyed while the carts were unloaded. What possible reason could the SS have had to arrest Fey and the children? The order had come from Berlin, indicating that someone of high rank had issued it. He had failed to establish the identity of the man with the duelling scars, pictured with Hitler and Mussolini. Was there a connection? he wondered. Yet, for the second time, Foster stopped himself from questioning the old man. He found his grief discomforting; he did not want to risk distressing him further. Instead, he changed the subject. The Desert Air Force had captured some fine horses, which he intended to bring to the castle. Would it be possible to see the stables? he asked.
They stood a little way off, in a low stone building behind the barn.
Stepping inside, Foster could see that there were rows of empty stalls. It was where the Germans had kept their horses and the smell of the animals’ sweat still hung in the air.12
As they walked past the line of empty stalls, Foster described the scene he had witnessed north of Ferrara after the Desert Air Force had bombed the bridges over the Po. Along the south bank of the river, thousands of horses, of all colours, shapes and sizes, had crammed the fields.13 A shortage of petrol meant the retreating German Army’s transport had been largely horse-drawn. When they reached the great wide river, they had no means of getting the animals across and they had to abandon them. This was where DAF had captured the horses they wanted to stable at Brazzà.
They came to the last stall.14 It was in the far corner of the stables and was occupied by a small white pony. The old man stopped to stroke his muzzle. It was called Mirko, he said, and it was twenty-seven years old. He had taught the boys how to ride on the pony – and their father before them. The little one – Robertino – had adored it. Every morning, as soon as the boy started walking, he had brought him down here to give the pony an apple.
Again, a sharp sense of loss assailed the old man, and he turned abruptly and walked away, muttering that he had things he must be getting on with.
On his way back to the house, the story of the mother and her two boys kept turning through Foster’s mind. His own son was six years old. Despite all that he had seen in the war, the thought that such a thing could have happened to him had the Germans reached Britain made a deep impression.15
Where were these two Italian boys aged two and four? Nobody knew but, assuming they had in fact been sent to a Nazi orphanage in Germany, how could they be traced? The chaos in Germany was complete: the country had been invaded from both the east and the west and the damage and disruption caused by Allied bombing and by the extensive land battles was formidable.16 Movement for civilians around the country was difficult and hazardous, and starvation and general misery were rife. Upwards of 2 million displaced persons were surging through Germany, trying to get back to their homelands or fleeing from Communism in the east. The prospect of tracing two nameless children who had been swallowed up in the turmoil was indeed remote.
Moreover, they could be anywhere.17 There were a great many of these Nazi orphanages, not only in Germany, but in Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Had the SS kept the boys in Germany or had they moved them to another orphanage in one of the countries the Nazis had occupied?
Most distressing of all, though, was the thought that no one would look for them. From all that the old man had said, it seemed likely that both their parents were dead.
PART THREE
* * *
7.
Villa Glori, Rome, 19 October 1937
At exactly nine-thirty on a dull, humid morning, Benito Mussolini entered the vast piazza on a white horse. Behind him, mounted on black horses, followed the commanders of the Italian police force.1 A fanfare of trumpets sounded and the 6,000 carabinieri massed in the square raised their arms in the Fascist salute.
The ovation as Mussolini entered the piazza was deafening.2 Thousands of Romans lined the rails and crowded the terraces. It was National Police Day and they had come to the Villa Glori, a park on the banks of the Tiber, to watch the celebrations and to catch a glimpse of their idol. Following the conquest of Abyssinia, Mussolini’s popularity was at its height. At his headquarters in the heart of the city, an entire department of fifty civil servants was devoted to fuelling the cult of personality the dictator encouraged. Shouts of ‘Viva Il Duce’ and ‘Viva l’Impero’ rang around the square, echoing the Roman shouts of ‘Ave
Imperator’ 2,000 years before.
Banners, 100 feet high, bearing the Nazi swastika and the colours of the Italian flag, hung from flagpoles and draped the sides of the covered stand reserved for dignitaries. Swathed in sashes and decorations and encrusted in gold and silver braid, they stood sweating in their uniforms: chiefs of police from all over Italy; ministers and civil servants; the Principe Colonna, Governor of Rome; and representatives from the Vatican in their long red robes.
The guest of honour was Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer SS and chief of the German police.
Erect, inscrutable, a ceremonial sabre gleaming at his side, he stood, all in black, on a podium. Ostensibly, his presence was a goodwill gesture, a mark of the close relations between Italy and Germany. But the true purpose of his two-day visit to Rome was to urge Mussolini to use his police force to combat ‘the totally destructive tyranny of Bolshevism … the Jew in his worst form’.3 That summer, Himmler had ordered the construction of a new concentration camp at Buchenwald to accommodate thousands of political prisoners, and more were in the pipeline. His aim was to persuade the Italian dictator to follow his example.4
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