Figli del destino

ITALICO SANDRO MUSSOLINI ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

See you tomorrow, girls!

MILAN, MAY 1938

No, don't run or I'll look bad. Come on!

Liliana, sorry. Come.

I want to set up your bud.

- That's it. - Thanks.

Maestra Cesarina, do you have children?

No, I don't.

I'm nubile. But fortunately I have you, girls.

And I love you as you were my children.

But Mom has the others.

True.

So it means I love you more than the others.

- Liliana. - Dad!

- Hello, Dr. Segre. - Hello.

How did it go today? Were you good?

Sure, very good as always.

Shall we go?

- Goodbye. - Goodbye.

- Goodbye, Maestra Cesarina. - Bye, Liliana, see you tomorrow.

In Milan, at school, Liliana waited all morning for that moment.

The time when your father would arrive and take you by the hand.

Before the racial laws I was just a girl.

In a small family.

Petty bourgeois, lay.

So it was a Jewish family

but with no particular rites.

Or particular friendships.

I didn't even know I was Jewish.

NAPLES, JUNE 1938

Guys, it's ready in half an hour, eh!

Okay, Ma'!

Let's make the teams then.

There are five of us, but four Kahns.

- You go play with them and that's it. - Okay.

In Naples Tullio loved the streets of Vomero Hill,

the sea and soccer matches against the Kahn brothers

with whom he'd share far more than passion for football.

We were a bourgeois family

composed of Dad, Mom and five siblings.

And I was the youngest.

We were a peaceful family, if you like.

PISA, JULY 1938

In Pisa Guido had a dream.

To become a man like his father, good and brave.

And with his dad he'd discover

a child's courage could be bigger than an adult's.

Come on, Augusto! Why don't you come work here too?

- Why are you still in Rail? - Rail is a safe job.

It's nice, but we'll have to see the end.

And you like trains, don't you, Guido?

Uncle, but writing is gold, right?

When it's there, I will consider working here.

- Nice. - Good work, Uncle.

Most shops used to be Jews'.

That included my uncles' shops, let's say my family's.

It was my gran's shop, but family.

ROME, SEPTEMBER 1938

In Rome Lia really loved reading children's books and making up things.

She was a good singer too.

Lia, will you do this homework?

Yes, now I will.

Enough! I'm switching it off.

No, no, wait! Let the song finish.

No, no.

Dad's coming. Do the homework and fast.

Okay, then I'll finish it at home.

I know anyway.

For sure.

And what can you do, Signora? Lia is better than the radio.

I belonged to a bourgeois family.

Let's say, quite well off

with Jewish values.

But it wasn't completely observant apart from tradition.

It being quite an informed family

I picked up on anxiety even before the racial laws.

World Jewishness was,

during 16 years and despite our politics,

an enemy irreconcilable with fascism!

One needs a clear,

severe,

racial conscience

to fix not only differences

but very clear superiority!

On 5 September 1938, in Tenuta di San Rossore in Pisa,

King Vittorio Emanuele signed the first decree of the laws

to forbid in a few months Jews from performing most jobs

and especially Jewish children from going to school.

It's the start of an out and out persecution

of 50,000 Italians' civil rights whose only crime was being Jewish.

It's a disgrace! A disgrace! It's impossible!

I don't understand. I don't know what's with Mussolini.

Where are you going, eh? Amedeo, won't you talk?

And what can I say, eh? And Mussolini was different before.

Mussolini is Mussolini!

What's got into you? He's Hitler's ally! What were you thinking?

The Germans didn't ask him to do what he's doing!

It's his initiative, his idea!

- Enough, leave me in peace! - Yes, go, go. Go!

Roberto, you shouldn't take it out on your brother.

What's he to do with it?

Yes, but that's too easy! Now what will we tell Liliana?

What happened?

Huh? What's up, what did I do?

Nothing, you did nothing.

Listen, maybe you'd better talk there a minute.

To understand the terrible impact of the racial laws

towards those guys of '38

you also need to understand the betrayal they suffered.

They were Italian,

deeply immersed in the culture of the time.

They were boys feeling fascist 100%.

And overall, their Jewish culture was just marginal.

But the introduction of the racial laws

throws their Jewishness in their face.

They make them feel Jewish because others force them to.

The State Central Archive, in Rome,

is almost bursting with notes and texts by Mussolini

relating to the anti-Jewish law writings.

It's clear this person who applied himself, studied,

and the laws that finally came out, given that he's the dictator,

are the fruit of work and a considered, if we can use this term,

"serious" and deep thinking from his point of view, obviously.

From October 1938

Tullio Foà, Lia Levi, Guido Cava and Liliana Segre

will no longer be children like all the rest.

- They expelled you. - Expelled?

You cannot go back to school.

- What did I do? - Nothing, you did nothing.

It's the…

The government made laws, new laws,

prohibiting Jewish children from going to school with the others.

But why me?

We're Jews, Liliana.

Yes, but so what?

I'm Italian. Did they expel Italian children?

Not Catholic Italians, who they call "Aryan".

The word "expelled" from the elementary school,

where I was in first and second year,

was very bad news.

I could hardly bear it.

Because even a child knows

being expelled from school means you did something bad.

And I started with that question

"Why? Why? Why?"

that I could never answer.

I still can't.

It doesn't make sense.

Does it mean we are worth less?

For them.

Not so. Not so at all.

For me you are worth the same as all children, more, in fact!

What'll we do now?

Now I'll see and find a school that takes Jewish children too.

But you won't see Maestra Cesarina again.

How can we tell her?

She likes me so much.

JEWISH TEACHERS AND STUDENTS EXPELLED FROM SCHOOL

FROM THE 16TH OCTOBER

THE FATHER AND THE MOTHER DO NOT BELONG TO THE JEWISH RACE

The racial laws took us all by surprise.

After a bit of muttering I heard at home, my mother

took me aside and said, "I have to talk to you".

The whole talk was that I wouldn't go back to school.

There, that was the start of my upset, albeit unaware.

"From tomorrow you two won't go back to school."

I was eight, my brother 11.

So I said, "But why, Pa?

We studied a lot, we got good marks. Why won't we go back to school?"

"Because. Just because, okay, you won't."

The children do not just have to bear this new reality striking them.

They also see their families plunge into chaos and desperation.

Isn't it nice, Guido?

Augusto, what's up?

Augusto?

- I don't know how to say it, Cinzia. - Come, Guido.

You stay with the little one, eh.

There, with your little sister.

Augusto, what's wrong?

I lost my job, Cinzia.

I was fired this morning. Laws.

But Rail can't.

Yes, they can fire me. Must, in fact.

And soon there'll be no more school for Guido.

The office boss called my pa and said

"Cava, I'm glad you've become a father.

But I have to give you…

The good news is that you had a third daughter.

But I have to give you more news."

He opened the drawer and gave him the firing letter.

My pa knew about the racial laws and had expected it.

And they fired him.

- But why us? - "Why"? Because we're Jewish.

Just Jewish.

- Pa, what's going on? - I don't know, Guido.

I don't know.

Especially for the youngest children

the world starts with the awareness given from their parents,

the security parents imbue in children.