“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 fiery 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.
“I don’t care. It’s their loss,” Eva said defiantly. Her chin was high and her eyes were bright. She obviously did care. But Felix cared even more. The news was yet another, very personal blow to the teacher who had spent years molding her into a classical violinist.
Felix wasn’t adjusting well to any of the laws. He’d been in Italy for thirteen years and had become a citizen after five. But his citizenship was revoked with the new laws. Camillo had managed to get him an exemption. Angelo didn’t know how, but he knew it usually had to do with money and bribes, which Camillo had gladly paid. For the time being, Felix was safe, though his father was not. His father’s precarious fate in Austria and the continual insult of the Italian Racial Laws had made the handsome forty-five-year-old Austrian look sixty. His blue eyes were heavily shadowed and his light-brown hair had turned almost completely gray. He was gaunt and quiet and spent far too much time in his room.