The Romans won’t even refer to Via Tasso as German headquarters. It is regarded with such loathing and fear that it is simply called laggiù—down there. They whisper, “So and so was taken down there.”
I rarely venture beyond my little desk outside the captain’s office and the small kitchen and lavatory down the hall. I run errands, relay messages, type endless reports, make coffee, and do whatever the captain asks. But I hear things, and I feel them. It is a grim place to be, though the offices are separated from the prison that haunts my dreams. I’ve seen the cells of the prison, I’ve been inside one, and though I was never tortured, I am sure many are. So I listen and I watch and I pay attention, hoping something I learn will be of use.
Eva Rosselli
CHAPTER 14
FLORENCE
Angelo stepped off the train in Florence and was met by a frantic Aldo Finzi wearing the robes of a priest, robes that Angelo had made sure he had, just in case. It was November 27, 1943, and the time had come for disguises in Florence.
Ostrica had been raided, Aldo’s home had been ransacked, his printing press destroyed. They were looking for him, but not just him. The SS, Italian and German, were looking for all of Florence’s Jews, and they weren’t doing it quietly. “Rabbi Cassuto has been arrested,” Aldo cried, his eyes wild as they walked from the train station, unsure of where to go now that hell had descended on the city. “He was arrested with a priest and several other members of the underground. I was afraid it was you, Angelo. That’s why I’m here. I thought it was you.”
Angelo had come to Florence for that very purpose—to meet with Rabbi Cassuto and deliver the last of Camillo’s money. He had been delayed at a checkpoint and missed his train that morning, and that delay may have saved his life. Angelo put his arm around Aldo’s shoulders, reassuring him, but he was leveled by the news. He had come to know Nathan Cassuto through DELASEM. Camillo Rosselli had introduced them after Felix’s death and made sure that the young rabbi knew how to contact Angelo when he needed funds.
The rabbi was a tall, handsome man with kind eyes and a gentle demeanor. He’d been a doctor before the Racial Laws had made it impossible for him to practice. Fate, opportunity, and a rare, second rabbinical degree made him a candidate for a different vocation, and what a terrible, tragic time to be a rabbi. Yet he hadn’t wilted under the pressure or succumbed to the temptation of the “wait and see” attitude that so many Jewish leaders and their congregations couldn’t resist. He’d warned his people tirelessly, telling them to hide, to get out, and he’d stayed behind with those who couldn’t. Now he’d been taken.
The streets were absolute chaos. Germans with bullhorns rode up and down the neighborhoods demanding that residents—all residents—come out of their homes. They were to bring no possessions, no weapons—guns were illegal to all but the police—and they had three minutes to be outside. If the Germans found them hiding in their homes, they were shot.
It was the Roman razzia all over again, but there was nothing stealthy about this raid. It took place on the streets in broad daylight, in full, garish colors and surreal pageantry.
Three blocks from the train station a family was being lined up against the wall, their hands in the air. The father was trying to reason with the soldiers, talking wildly with his hands, pointing and gesturing. A soldier knocked him in the side of the head with the butt of his rifle and the man dropped, his animated hands coming to final rest at his sides. His hysterical family was executed against the wall, and the man was left in the street, lying in a growing pool of blood. A soldier put a bullet in his head to make sure the family wouldn’t be separated in death.
Angelo and Aldo saw Jewish children being torn from their mother’s arms and loaded into trucks while their sobbing parents were loaded into another. On the corner, mere feet from the seminary where Angelo had obtained his degree, a teenaged boy was shot in the back as he tried to flee from a member of the Italian SS. Angelo had to walk around his body to escort Aldo inside the gates. Father Sebastiano and several other monks had gathered the seminarians together, and their heads were bowed in prayer. The Germans had been and gone, and no one had been harmed or discovered, though Angelo knew for certain there were a few Jewish boys hidden among the seminarians.
“Wait for me here,” Angelo instructed Aldo. “You will come back with me to Rome. But I have to make sure my grandparents are safe, and I need you off the streets.”
“I have the type for the documents. I break it up after every session, but I was able to grab it, all my samples, and my province stamps. I also have a stack of finished documents and a hundred more that need pictures and names. Everything is in a suitcase in a locker at the train station. If you can find me a printing press in Rome, I can continue with my work.”
Angelo didn’t know how he would manage it, but they would find a press, even if they had to put one in a cloister. He kissed the little man’s cheeks and promised not to be long, striding down the street, his heart galloping sickly, his sights set on the villa.
The SS beat him there.
When he arrived, several soldiers were overturning beds, opening closets, tapping walls, and peering into dark corners. A captain stood in the courtyard with Santino and Fabia, a clipboard in his hands. A member of OVRA, recognizable by his black uniform, had taken the lead in the questioning, though his translation skills left a great deal to be desired. Angelo’s grandparents had obviously been ordered from the house and were now being questioned about the whereabouts of Camillo and Eva Rosselli. As he approached, a weapon was leveled at him, but he was greeted civilly.
“You are Angelo Bianco?” the SS officer asked. Angelo’s blood ran cold. He hadn’t lived in Florence for four years. But they knew who he was. They knew his connection to the residence.
“Yes,” he answered in German. He wouldn’t mind leaving the Italian Blackshirt guessing about the conversation. He looked familiar to Angelo, and familiarity with your enemy is often portentous of bad things.
“Can you tell me where Batsheva Rosselli is?” The Italian jumped in immediately.
“No.” Santino was shaking his head. “We haven’t seen her in months.”
“I find that hard to believe. You are her family. Surely, she would tell you where she was going.” The OVRA official said this with such certainty that Angelo was sure the man must know Eva personally.
Angelo realized suddenly who the man was. He’d courted Eva, years before. Eva had said she liked him because he looked good in a uniform and he was a great dancer. It had made Angelo jealous, though he’d never admitted it, even to himself. His robes were hardly masculine, and his inability to dance was well established. It had rubbed at him, Eva’s enthusiasm for things he couldn’t do with her.
The policeman had even dated her a few times after the Racial Laws were passed. And now he was here, looking for her, asking after her whereabouts, so he could assist the German occupiers in arresting and deporting her. The name came to his mind instantly. Georgio. His name was Georgio De Luca.
“Georgio! It is you! I didn’t recognize you at first.” Angelo greeted him with forced levity and clasped his hand, patting it affectionately as if he and the Italian thug were dear old friends. Then he turned to the SS man and, in German, clued him in on the Blackshirt’s romantic interest in the woman they now searched for.
“I thought maybe Georgio and little Eva would marry. They were quite taken with each other!” he lied effusively. The German’s eyebrows rose dramatically.
“So you don’t know where Eva is?” the Italian shot back instantly, his eyes hardening. He didn’t like Angelo undermining his credibility with the Germans.
“We have it on good authority that she is engaged to be married and living in Naples,” Angelo lied. “But with the difficulties in communication between the north and the south, you understand, we have not heard from her in months.”
The German didn’t like being left out of the loop, and he cleared his throat expectantly. Angelo instantly translated.
“Interesting. I could have sworn I saw her with you in September, Padre. You were at the station boarding a train to Rome.”
Angelo did not translate this. He just shook his head and shrugged, adopting the old Italian response to anything sticky or uncomfortable. Shrug and shrug some more. I don’t know. Don’t ask me.
The German SS officer seemed a little unsure of himself. His men had returned to the courtyard. He waved them back to the truck and turned to Angelo.
“It is against the law to hide or harbor Jews, Father. I hope you aren’t hiding Miss Rosselli. It would not go well for you or your grandparents. Think of them.”
Angelo nodded immediately. “Of course. You can rest assured, sir. I want only to do the right thing.” He bowed subserviently and turned to Georgio De Luca. “And Georgio. So nice to see you again. If we do hear from Eva at some point, I will tell her you came by.”
Georgio flushed angrily and stomped to the jeep. The German officer clicked his boots and followed him, a deep groove between his brows. They rolled out of the courtyard, through the gate, and Angelo, Santino, and Fabia stood in silence and watched them go, badly shaken.
The house had been searched from top to bottom, various valuables removed for the “support of the Reich,” but his grandparents were unharmed, and the house had not been commandeered. But had Eva stayed in Florence, she would have been arrested. They had known exactly where to find her.
“It’s time for you to leave Florence, Nonno,” Angelo told his grandfather. “Go stay with your brother.” He had a feeling the Gestapo would be back.
“Where do you live, Fräulein Bianco?” Captain von Essen asked Eva out of the blue one morning. She had delivered his coffee and the stack of reports that he’d had her type.
The question surprised her. She’d had to list her address for her employment file when she’d begun work at Via Tasso. He could look in her file for the information. She was guessing he already had.