The story I am
telling is based mainly on what my mother wrote some time ago for her children
and siblings about the family history. Then an uncle’s story was added, and
recently a box of documents was found by my sister. Thus I, my sister and two
cousins are attempting to construct a complete version, but that needs a lot of
time, because we live far apart and we have different ideas. For now I am
offering what I and my sister have collected. It’s right to warn that, as you
know, there isn’t always complete agreement between the documents. Furthermore
quite often the writer had their own point of view and at times is reporting
information received from others. So with these limitations, and sometimes
doubts, here is the story of Augusta Schiff and her descendants.
The story starts in
Milan, soon after 1860, when Samson’s family left Trieste and moved here. The
Schiffs often opened their salon to guests, a salon which is said to have been
frequented by intellectuals, often with liberal ideas, sometimes even masonic.
A member of the family who stands out is definitely Paolina, then in her
twenties, with startling red hair and beautiful hands. (For many years
afterwards her niece kept a plaster cast of her delicate small hand.) Paolina
was probably inspired by the discussions and ideas that were current at those
events for her romance ‘The Refugee’. The hero, after his involvement in the
events of 1848, disappointed by their failure, goes and dies for Greek
independence, like Santorre di Santarosa. Paolina was accustomed to making
almond biscuits with her own hands for the guests, and was courted, even though
she probably didn’t marry (though there is some doubt concerning her niece
Aliverti, given the task of executing her final wishes).
Her older sister
Augusta, born two years before herself, was more in the shadows, that is until
one day entered a man in his thirties, with slightly long dark brown hair, and
with a beard trimmed square. He was called Giovanni Spazzi and was from Verona,
and he was a member of an old family of sculptors and stonemasons. The Spazzis
are in fact one of the many families included in the so-called Intelvi or
Antelami Masters, who had their origins around 1300 in the Vale of Intelvi near
Como. In the course of the following centuries they went and worked in many
parts of Europe. (It’s a branch that I’ve not yet managed to reconstruct, but
there was a conference that touched on them some years ago in Verona.)
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| Auguste Schiff |
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| Giovanni Spazzi |
Giovanni and his
older brother Grazioso had set up a workshop of some importance in their native
city and had won competitions, and were having some success in the creation of
monumental tombs in Verona’s Monumental cemetery, which was very much in vogue
in those days. However, politically they were both convinced supporters of
Mazzini. After the 1859 War of Independence the Austrians were little inclined
to tolerate ‘subversives’ and thus Giovanni was exiled and went to Milan, and
ended up meeting Augusta. The conclusion was that on 30th August 1863 the two
were married in a Catholic ceremony.
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| Augusta and Giovanni's marriage certificate |
However the
Mazzinians, who wanted a republic and not a monarchy, were not happy with the
new kingdom of Italy. Eventually the young Spazzi-Schiff family had to leave
Milan too and went to live at Desenzano del Garda where, on 13th december 1864,
their daughter Vittoria was born. Unfortunately their joy was short-lived,
because on 1st January 1866, having somehow returned to Verona, Giovanni fell
ill and died, leaving a widow with a young child and with no financial
resources.
His brother Grazioso
tried in vain to persuade the Verona city authorities to purchase a statue of
Sammicheli made by Giovanni, in order to help Augusta and Vittoria. Eventually
it was their Mazzinian friends, followers of Young Europe, who found a work
opportunity for Augusta, even though unusual and in a distant town: Head of the
Charity Children’s Nursery in Fiume. Augusta showed herself to be brave and
determined and accepted the challenge of this adventure, as a woman alone and
with a daughter, in a town where she had no relations to give her some support.
I have asked myself why she did not turn to her family, why didn’t she ask her
father for his help. Even if it did happen it has left no record. It’s also
possible that marrying outside the Jewish faith, with somebody considered
unreliable because of the uncertain nature of his work and his political ideas
would have rendered difficult her relationship with Samson. But I think that
that plaster cast of Paolina’s hand that Augusta still kept many years later
suggests that the sisters kept in touch. Unfortunately Paolina’s archive was
burnt in the bombing of the Sforza Castle in Milan where it had been deposited.
Perhaps it did not include her private correspondence, whilst nothing remains
of Vittoria’s. Thus there are things that we shall probably never know.
Before I carry on
with the story I should say a few words about Fiume and the Charity Nursery.
Undoubtedly Fiume has always been an unusual town. It has been a protected port
for centuries where goods moved from the northern Balkans to the Adriatic and
Mediterranean. Never linked with Venice, it always came under the kingdom of
Croatia, but the Austrian empire assigned it instead to Hungary, as its outlet
to the sea. Italian was always the language of the majority of its inhabitants,
or rather a local variant of the Venetian dialect. Trade, however, created a
community of varied ethnicities and faiths: Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox,
Jews, Muslims. It was a truly multiethnic city and above tolerant and
respectful of diversity. However, despite the benefits that accrued from
commerce, the majority of the population only benefitted marginally. In 1841
Csapò, wife of the newly appointed Hungarian governor, struck by the harsh
conditions in which many children lived, had established in a portion of a
noble palazzo in the centre a day nursery for thirty young children, who could
dine there thrice daily and stay until the evening, a sort of day nursery. It
was here that Augusta started working, earning appreciation and recognition for
what she did for young children.
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| A Spanish map (hence the spellings) of Northern Italy, showing Fiume and Bolzano |
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| A map of North Eastern Italy |
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| An Italian map of Istria, which became Italian between the wars, though the coastal towns had long been Italian speaking. Fiume is now known as Rijeka. |
(I have just discovered, examining more carefully a document dated 1908 that was presented to Augusta in recognition of 25 years of service (probably a rectangular silver sugar bowl with engraved inscription that was stolen a few years ago), that her work in the nursery started only in 1883. There are therefore a few years unaccounted for, but she and Vittoria were certainly already in Fiume, as I shall say shortly.)
Augusta valued
education highly, and ensured that her daughter grew up knowing both Italian
and German well, and that she studied classical literature. She even did this
when she went to the park, sitting on the park seats and reading Dante’s Divine
Comedy, even though she was only fifteen years old. Certainly a girl of that
age reading Dante in the park could not pass unobserved by a teacher. In fact that
was how György Kavulyàk, a Slovak senior teacher, met her.
Perhaps this means
that Augusta went back to her family, underwent training as a nursery teacher
and then, having qualified, found her post at Fiume. It’s only a hypothesis,
but could explain why there are two photographs of Augusta taken in Milan, one
taken when she was older, perhaps when she returned to see her father and
sisters.
In my haste today I
have made another mistake: the date of the meeting between Giorgio and Vittoria
was 1879, when she was fifteen. I don’t know why I’ve mixed up the date of her
birth with the death of her father. It means it changes also her age when she
started work in the nursery in Fiume: she was 19, not 17, as I wrote lower
down.
György Kavulyàk was
born in Ustie nad Labom (on the Elbe), then in Slovakia, and now in the Czech
Republic, in about 1850. Most likely at that time the official language in that
zone was Hungarian, which became effectively his mother tongue. After becoming
a teacher he was moved to Fiume. However, given that he had to teach Italian,
he was sent for a time to Tuscany to learn it better. He did this so well that
in 1887 he even wrote an Italian-Hungarian dictionary. He greatly enjoyed
philosophy and he also wrote some papers on that subject.
But let’s go back to
that meeting in the park in 1879, when he saw Vittoria engaged with Dante.
Despite the great difference in age (he about thirty, she only 15). Their
literary and cultural interests led to them seeing each other and a year later,
in 1881, they married. We can imagine the sigh of relief of her mother Augusta
to see her daughter set up with a promising schoolmaster. The next step was
obviously children, and Hungarian names were given to the boys. However the
firstborn, Arpad, died soon after birth. Then came Pia in 1884, Akos in 1886, Geza
in 1888, Maria, known as Mary, and Giorgio, known as Gino.
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| Vittoria as a young woman |
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| György as a young man |
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| Marriage certificate for György and Vittoria |
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| Pia Kàrpàthy |
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| Akos Kàrpàthy |
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| Géza Kàrpàthy |
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| Maria Kàrpàthy as a young woman |
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| Giorgio as a young man |
While György was busy with his work and study, Vittoria had learned from her mother how to carefully manage the household, thanks to the vicissitudes she had experienced. It was she who controlled the finances and very often decided how and how much to spend. This was something that marked her relationship with her sons and daughters in law. It has to be said that the family was large, considering that her mother Augusta also continued to live with her daughter. Even if Vittoria worked at the nursery with her mother, as we recently discovered, the salary was low. György’s was decent, as he had become a sort of internal coordinator, but eight people is a lot. But Vittoria saved hard especially as she had to important aims: to get all her children into education, and to buy a house to live peacefully with her family. We shall see that she achieved both.
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| Augusta in old age |
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| Inscribed silver box presented to Vittoria in Fiume in 1908 |
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| Presentation to Augusta in 1908 |
Pia studied to become
a teacher, Akos enrolled at the university to study engineering, Geza was sent
to a free college in Romania for the children of state employees and then to
the law and politics faculty, whilst Mary studied to become a doctor. Giorgio
unfortunately died when he was about twenty from peritonitis, in great pain,
leaving a lasting impression on his brothers and sisters. The only one to partly
avoid further studies was Geza, who decided in 1908 to enrol in the police in
Fiume. In the meantime the family had changed its name, assuming the more
Hungarian Kàrpàthy.
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| Abate Zanella |
When Austria declared
war on Serbia in 1914, young men were also sent to the front from Fiume,
obviously not the Italian one, given that many spoke that language, but far
away, towards the eastern borders of the empire. However that wasn’t a warlike
population, unlike the Bosnians and Croats. Thus it was that people
increasingly began to wonder if it would not be better to be with Italy.
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| Augusta's brother Federico outside the Stella Polare bar in Trieste |
Akos became an
engineer and worked in the naval shipyards, which is why he was not called up
to fight. Geza too, as a policeman stayed home. But in 1918, when a sham plot
was used to blame young pro-Italians, he refused to arrest innocent people. For
this he was demoted and sent to the front, though only for a few months, as the
war ended in November and the Austrians and Hungarians quickly left Fiume.
When Geza came back
he was disappointed and demotivated. He started drinking, and ran up debts,
living with friends in a seaside villa, worrying his father György and his
mother Vittoria, who didn’t know what to do.
At that time Fiume
had become an even more individual place. Fought over by Italy and what would
become Yugoslavia, it was controlled by Italian, French and English soldiers.
But whilst they could not make up their minds, Gabriele D’Annunzio, poet,
patriot and a remarkable individual, took charge of several former Italian
soldiers and after a seventy kilometre march entered the city in triumph,
whilst the other troops left without causing any difficulties.
Whilst waiting for
the great powers to make up their minds D’Annunzio declared the city’s
independence and granted it innovative laws, such as universal suffrage, fair
wages, free education, old age pensions, equality regardless of gender, race or
religion, and even divorce — many Italians adopted Fiume citizenship purely to
leave their wives, including the Nobel prize winner Guglielmo Marconi.
Lenin declared that
D’Annunzio was the only person who could bring about a communist revolution in
Italy, and Fiume was the first ‘state’ to recognise the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics.
It was too far. After
three years of unsuccessful negotiations, in two months Italia and Yugoslavia
agreed on how to share the city. D’Annunzio and his legionaries were expelled,
and Fiume soon passed under Italian control, except for the Croat zone which
went to Yugoslavia.
At that time of
enthusiasm and passions, gatherings and proclamations, Geza stood aside, until
such time that a girl arrived at the villa, the sister of his best friend’s
wife, the friend too being dedicated at that time to living the good life in
the house. Geza already knew Emma Pillepich, but she’d always seemed a child to
him. But by that time she had grown up (she was nineteen years old) and, unlike
him, she was really passionate about events in the city, being among the first women
to board the Italian ship that reached the porta t the armistice, and lying
down in the road to stop the Legionaries leaving. Geza was really impressed by
Emma’s energy in sorting out the house, and getting rid of those parasitical
friends who had been eating and drinking at his expense. And thus it was on
midsummer’s eve in 1922, in front of a bonfire in the grounds of the house,
Geza declared his love to Emma, and the house would crash down on him if it
were not true (it was a good job they were outdoors their children would always
joke).
Emma’s family was
Croatian and very different to Geza’s, with her father a master mason who was
thrice married and with ten children, at least those known, and her father a
countrywoman. None of them had studied, but they knew how to be decent people —
the mother used to say that nobody’s too poor that they can’t give a smile,
whilst in the Karpati household proper manners were very important.
But the mere fact of
having got Geza back on track made the miracle happen and so the two were
married a few months later and he went back into the police, this time Italian.
The oldest brother, Akos, had been already married for a few years to Elda
Schednitz, sister of the manager of the electricity company, a well to do
family, and they already had two daughters: Erna born in 1919, and Nedda two
years later.
Mary graduated in
medicine and was going to marry a dentist, near Trieste. Only Pia wasn’t ‘settled’,
as one used to say of unmarried children. At the end of the war she was the
only member of the family who preferred to identify as Hungarian and she left
for Györ to be a French teacher. She was probably the best looking of the
family, she painted lovely pictures, she sang and she played the violin. She
came back several times to see her family, but she never married.
Soon Geza and Emma
brought into the world their own children, first Mirella in 1923, Giorgio a
year later, and Giovanni the year after that. Finally, in 1933 the last, Giulio
came.
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| The family house in Fiume |
Meanwhile, with the help of Akos who was progressing in his career, Vittoria had achieved the last of her goals, buying a large house with a private internal courtyard. It was on three floors. In the middle one she lived with György; above them with a large bathroom and balcony Akos lived with his family, and on the ground floor Geza’s family, and, in one room, the now very old Augusta.
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| Geza and Emma's wedding |
So far the story has
been told, but now onwards the younger children tell their own stories, even if
they don’t always tally.
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| Summer 1923, Augusta with her daughter, son in law, grandchildren and great grandchildren |
Great Grandmother Augusta
had been given the nickname granny-two, to distinguish here from the real
grandmothers. She always wore black lace over her hair and a white lace jabot,
fixed with a pin to the collar of her dress. By now she was tiny and to the
children her face seemed a bit ugly and shrivelled. She was still attached to
the formal style of the Schiff family in Milan, which she had probably sought
to preserve in her own life, insisting that one should dress at 11 to receive
visitors. She stayed very much in her own room, furnished with old drawing room
furniture which always seemed to be on the point of disintegration, and with an
iron bedstead, lacquered in black and gold. It must have been 1929, when she
had lived a long life (about ninety years) and by the end she had seen many
problems settled, and her family flourish again. One evening she felt a little
unwell and Emma helped her to bed, leaving a bella t her side so she could
summon help if she needed to. She didn’t ring, and in the mornng she was found
in the same position she had been left in the evening. There is a gypsy saying
that saints die that way.
Following granny-two’s
death it was grandad Giorgio who became the head of the family, he now being
eighty or older. He was Giorgio and no longer György, as all names had been
‘italianised’. Thus Akos became Agostino (or perhaps Augusto in memory of
granny-two; both versions survive, because he was always known as Akos by his
family). Geza, who also was always known by this name by the family, became
officially Vittorio, in honour of his mother. Grandad Giorgio by now had pure
white hair and beard, wore metal-rimmed glasses and had a shawl across his
knee. He was kindness personified. At heart he remained a teacher, and it was
he who taught many of his grandchildren to read and write, sat next to him at
the table, firstly with a large primer and later their first school text books.
He was patient, he spoke calmly and with a gentle voice, and if they were good
pupils he would reward them with a story.
As already mentioned,
in Fiume people spoke the local dialect. Speaking standard Italian was almost
considered eccentric by children. ‘Why are you talking posh?’ they said to
those who tried. But Grandad Giorgio knew it really well and it was thanks to
him that more than one grandchild learnt to speak it confidently.
Nonna Vittoria,
although she got on with Elda, Agostino’s wife, on the other hand did not get
on well with her daughter in law Emma, inasmuch as for her children she stayed
the formal ‘Nonna Karpati’. However, still being careful with money, at new
year, when traditionally children went bearing an apple to to give their good
wishes to family members, she would slip them a silver five lira coin, a
considerable sum in those days, even if she did advise them to save it, in case
of illness.
Each morning she was
in the habit of reading the ‘Vedetta d’Italia’ newspaper, she continued to
speak Hungarian and German, as well as a litle Croatian, and even helped her
granddaughter Mirella to translate and comment on a work by Grillpanzer for her
secondary examinations.
However, Nonno
Giorgio’s health was gradually deteriorating (arteriosclerosis or Alzheimer’s).
He was no longer recognising the house, he wanted to escape, kept under control
by his wife, against which he protested, stubbornly refusing to accept limits
and controls. He died on 25th January 1932. Soon after aunt Mary also died from
a tumour, having given up her work and her husband, retiring to her home and
hoping till the very end for a miracle that never came.
Meanwhile the
grandchildren were growing up. Agostino’s daughters were becoming young ladies,
and Nedda in particular excelled at school. Vittorio’s children (the last one,
Giuio, had been born) had a craze for Salgari’s thrillers, including Mirella.
As the eldest she always took the role of Sandokan, the pirate captain, when
they played, especially during long summer holidays at the seaside. Amongst the
adults, Pia had succeeded in becoming director of the Hungary Radio children’s
choir, in recognition of her talent in the musical field. Agostino had become
manager of the naval shipyards and he was often away giving advice at Taranto,
La Spezia, Bremen or Hamburg. By now Vittorio had been promoted to a high grade
in the police force. However, he could be described as a ‘good cop’, reluctant
to not give a second chanceto somebody who had erred for a first time or
through necessity. Above all he was honest and upright, believing that he
should set an example to the family’s children. He had never taken up
membership of the Fascist Party, but he received it automatically because of
his job, otherwise they would have had to sack him.
Times had changed,
there was war in Spain, the Ethiopian campaign, and the sanctions against Italy.
Every so often schools sent their students to make a bit of a din outside the
French and English embassies, which they saw as an unexpected extra day’s
holiday. But the relentless propaganda aimed at young people was changing
things and some began to display even in class the Hitler Youth badge. Then the
Jews started to disappear from school, firstly the teachers and then the pupils
and their families. In the Karpati family politics were not discussed, and
differences of religion had always been normal in that city. The youngsters
didn’t understand what was happening. The adults perhaps knew, but nobody
talked about it. Some had left but others began moving to Sicily. Discomfort
with these events, and a request to collaborate in a fake fur trade from Hungary,
organised by government officials, led Vittorio Karpati to request a transfer.
He was sent initially to Fano, as a superintendant, and then to Bolzano, as a
translator for German officials, because it was the period of the ‘options’ and
Vittorio, in the family tradition, understood and spoke well several languages.
For those unacquainted with the Alto Adige, the northernmost part of Italy, on the
Austrian border, and which German speakers call Südtirol, it is difficult to
understand the problems of ethnic coexistence that were created in that zone
between the two world wars and still continue today, albeit in a milder form.
Beyond the location of the natural boundary, where the water flows down, was
born the County of Tyrol, one of the main German domains of the middle Ages.
Until 1918 German was the language here, by the faithful subjects of the
emperor Franz Joseph. (It should not be confused with Trentino, which has quite
a different story.) Following victory in the First World War, an attempt was made
to ‘italianise’ the region, encouraging immigration especially from rural areas
of the Veneto, although only in the lower valleys and the three main towns was
this significant. After the Anschluss with Austria, Italy and Germany made an
accord that German-speaking South Tyroleans should choose between moving to the
Third Reich, or staying in Italy, but adopting Italian language and culture,
including in schools. These were the so-called ‘options’ and around 75,000
people emigrated into the Reich by 1940. In many cases there were some who took
advantage of the necessity to sell houses and land to enrich themselves. When
Vittorio’s family moved to Bolzano however war had already started.
Initially it seemed
that the war would be distant, quick and victorious, but in 1941 it suddenly
came near, especially at Fiume. In April Hitler invaded Yugoslavia in just two
weeks, and made Ante Pavelic head of the new Nazi Croatia, who with his Ustashe
led a merciless regime of political and ethnic repression, with thousands of
deaths. Fifty years later the war in Kosovo reignited the unextinguished
hatreds created by these events. Italy, for its participation in the invasion,
was rewarded with territories bordering the Adriatic, in Venezia Giulia and
Istria. The province of Fiume was enlarged, to include the Croat areas of the
port and the rural hinterland, all inhabited by Croats, and whose hostility
grew towards the Italians. Moreover one of the largest torpedo factories in
Europe was set up in Fiume, thus making it an important potential military
target. In practice life was becoming increasingly difficult, and Akos sent his
mother to stay with his brother, where the situation was less threatening.
At that time Bolzano
was only affected by problems of rationing. Petrol had become precious, many
foodstuffs monthly became more expensive and difficult to find. The Karpatis
had found a house near the mountain, with a small vegetable garden, which was a
great help. Even Mirella, having finished high school, started doing some work
at the school to help with the many household expenses.
What had changed was
the acceptance of the war, what was its purpose and its reason. Despite the
propaganda nobody felt that victory was near, especially after the beginning of
1943 when trains began to arrive in Bolzano bringing back home soldiers who had
been sent to fight in Russia, and who had managed to survive that tragic
retreat in the frozen winter. It was a sad and full of suffering, as was
realised by the young students of Bolzano who attempted to welcome them.
And it was at just
that time that Vittorio was asked to go back to Fiume as chief constable, in
other words head of the police, the crowning of his career. He had doubts, but
finally accepted, but leaving his family behind in Bolzano while he ascertained
the circumstances better. Soon afterwards the eldest son, Giorgio, was called
up to fight. Fascism fell, but above all the kingdom of Italy fell, at least
for those in the north. Indeed, on 8th September 1943, when the English
announced the fall of Italy sooner than anticipated, they found nearly all the
Italian commands unprepared, whilst the Germans had withdrawn many of their
troops from the end of July, and had their plans prepared ready. In the power
vacuum and the lack of orders on how to respond a state of complete confusion
was created, leading to the surrender or disintegration of most of the Italian
armed forces of the Centre North. Both the area around Fiume and also of
Bolzano passed under the direct control of the German authorities and life
really did change.
In Fiume whilst part
of the army deserted, the others surrendered to the Germans, rather than risk
the vengeance of the Croatian partisans, and Vittorio was on his own and had to
decide what to do. Somebody claimed that some partisans would get him a free
pass. He knew anyhow that as head of the police they would certainly have
sentenced him. Instead, he got his brother to give him some civilian clothes
and left the city on foot. Agostino awaited the outcome of events, as his
family and all his possessions were there. The Germans arrived and he was arrested,
because he had never joined the Fascist party. He was lucky that the problem
vanished when it was realised he was an expert in his field, and he had never
had any interest in politics.
Giorgio had just got
back to his barracks at Bressanone when the armistice was declared. They were
two thousand men and their commander ordered them to surrender to fifteen
Germans. With hindsight, they all felt that they should not have done so, but
nobody understood what was happening, and as good soldiers they trusted their
officers to know better than them what to do. Instead they ended up on a train
heading straight to Germany, and for a while nobody at home knew anything about
their fate.
Similar events took
place at Bolzano, where thousands of men were rounded up in the football
stadium or in the valley of the Talvera river, overseen by Germans, awaiting
their fate. Seeing them in this state encouraged many civilians to do something
to help them. Some girls, including Mirella, got organised in order to find
civilian clothes for soldiers being treated in hospital to help them escape,
and took food to those on the river banks, despite the menacing presence of the
guards, and passing food and especially water into the wagons that were passing
through the station, carrying the prisoners away from Italy. In exchange they
were given letters and notes to be forwarded to their families.
In Bolzano people
generally did not know what to do. The schools had not reopened and, from being
only Italian, they had suddenly become all German, just as in the cinemas and
as it was becoming in offices, where only German-speaking or bilingual staff
could work.
In the Karpati family
they knew nothing about their father or his eldest son, and nobody had any
work. The tragic situation, including economically, lasted till November, when
Vittorio finally succeeded in getting back. It had taken him almost all that
time to get from Fiume to Trieste, just sixty kilometres, travelling on foot or
some wagon. But there war had broken out between Croatian partisans and the
Germans, fierce and cruel, and won without mercy by the latter. Being able to
speak both languages was essential to enable his survival.
At the end of 1943
the bombing of Bolzano started, as it had become a strategic point for the
arrival of fresh German troops via the Brenner. Although not many were killed,
in the thirteen bomb attacks that the city suffered more than fifty per cent of
the building were destroyed or damaged. The Karpati’s house was fortunately in
an area well away from the strategic targets, but because of this it was
requisitioned by the Germans for use as offices. Just because Vittorio had
managed to reenter the police force, although in an inferior position, they let
his family carry on living there in a few rooms on the ground floor.
Mirella, who was
completely bilingual, was working for the council, and Giovanni had started
work at the Lancia factory, definitely better than being sent to join the
German army. Giulio, the youngest, was only ten years old, but he wasn’t a child
who normally just think of playing at his age.
Their mother Emma’s
mind was focussed on one thing: her son about whom nobody knew anything. But
eventually some letters arrived: he had been taken to Hessen and allocated to a
so-called Arbeits Kommando, an enabling team which was required to work where
needed. If nothing else, he felt, the work helped to pass the time, even if
their hunger was great and a piece of bread in the morning and some turnip soup
in the evening were decidedly little to stave it off.
Fate is sometimes
strange. The first task he was given was to shift rubble in a city whose name
at that time meant nothing to him, but which for us is very familiar: Mannheim,
the very city from which Samson Schiff had left for Trieste a century ago. When
years later he saw a small coloured engraving of the streets in the town centre
which had been inherited from Augusta he recognised the spot immediately and
linked it to its origins.
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| Coloured engraving of Mannheim that belonged to Augusta |
When their mother
Emma had this news of her son on one hand she was definitely relieved to know
he was still alive, but on the other hand she decided that she had to do
something. The drive was rekindled in her that she had in crises, and she
started a stubborn search to seek out good food to send Giorgio, obviously
acquired on the black market, even though not much of it reached him. She
matched practical help with spiritual support, with many prayers and
pilgrimages.
The following year,
1944, when the first deportees began to return, she went daily to see them in
hospital. I’ve no idea how but every so often she managed to get some scarce
white bread, intended for the German command, and took it to them, with some
milk that she milked from two goats that she kept in the garden. When people
asked her why she did it, she said that she hoped somebody would do the same
for her son.
There was no longer
any decent food to eat, and for clothes everything was recycled and reused.
Morale was at rock bottom and the feeling that everything was disintegrating,
even in the German control, became increasingly more apparent. Despite the
risk, it was whispered that people were accumulating weapons, people were
listening to secret radios, people were hiding prisoners who had managed to
escape from Germany. Help for fugitives was even organised in the Carmelite
convent, and some were accompanied into the mountains by Mirella, pretending to
go on a lovers’ walk, until another ‘girlfriend’ met them to follow the path to
the Trentino in Italy.
Vittorio had managed
to get into a minor office and got many sick notes, either to give as little
help as possible to the Nazis, or because his health was indeed much worse,
mainly because of back problems resulting from a serious car accident.
Then towards the
middle of April the German retreat started, initially slowly and orderly, then
increasingly massive and uncontrolled. The Americans and English calmly went up
the valley of the Adige, trying to avoid pointless confrontations and deaths
with those withdrawing. The Germans left a strange vacuum behind them, which
was gradually replaced, amidst doubts and uncertainties about how to move in
that strange territory, where it wasn’t obvious whether the German speakers
were friends or foe. In 1944 all this group had been asked whether they wanted
to belong to the Republic of Salò, even if that might mean that they become
workers in Germany. Only two people accepted the invitation, all the others had
the courage to refuse, even though they were standing before two armed
soldiers.
Then March 1945 came.
He was on the French front building fortifications when the retreat started. He
had a slight head wound, and his friend had a leg injury. Two other prisoners
had helped them to keep going and walk, following the troops who were
withdrawing. It was enough to limp and slow down till the others moved ahead
without noticing them. Wandering through the rubble, lost souls, and Americans
who were advancing but who didn’t care about those six ragamuffins, they
finally managed to reach an American base in France. Then little by little, in
trains, hitching lifts and finally on foot, they reached the road that led them
home.
He saw a lad who was
looking at him, but he carried on. He hadn’t recognized him, as lads change a
lot in two years, but his brother Giulio did, and started calling their mother.
Emma looked out of the window annoyed. But when she saw Giorgio she rushed out,
oblivious of the rain, hugging and kissing him, after all that time that she
had spent waiting for him.
But we should go back
to the closing days of the war, this time in Fiume. On 3rd May the city had
been occupied by Tito’s Slav troops after the Germans had left, destroying what
was left of the factories and industrial units that had survived the intense
English bombings. Tito and Russia’s strategic objective was to occupy as much
territory as possible towards Venezia Giulia before the English and Americans
arrived. The Italians didn’t count in this game between the great powers.
The tragedy was that
in Fiume, as in all the territories that were thus occupied, two attitudes
combined, both of them negative: revenge for the abuses and violence suffered
at the hands of the Fascists and Nazis, and the determination to block any
attempt to put in question the establishment of a socialist government
controlled by the Slav population. It was soon clear that anybody who didn’t
agree would be killed or disappear, and that OZNA, the political police, could
act as it wished, above the law. It was in these circumstances that Akos Karpati
was rearrested, this time because he was assumed to be a Fascist collaborator.
This time his prison sentence was long and tough, and only in 1946, after the
workers’ evidence that he had only been doing his job and was politically
trustworthy was he able to go home. However he was very tested physically and
died a few months later. At that point his widow Elda left the city with her
two daughters and went to Bolzano, waiting to find out what was best to do.
At that time a good
number of Emma’s Croatian relations made the same choice, to come to Italy,
showing that it wasn’t just a question of ethnic origin (though it should be
mentioned that several women had married Italians). There were some who, like
her niece Liliana, a lovely girl, completely vanished, after being seen for the
last time one morning as she was washing the steps of the courtroom. Whilst
what remained of Akos’ family went to Bolzano, some went in the opposite
direction. It was Nonna Vittoria Karpati who stubbornly wanted to go back to
the house she had bought for her family so many years before. She managed to
get there, and obstinately stayed as long as she could, until 1949.
Despite the hopes of
the Italians that Fiume should remain at least self-governing and multiethnic
as it had been for centuries, the politicians in Rome saw clearly that it would
be enough should stay Italian, and even that did not happen until 1953. All
that happened was that the same rules were applied in Istria that Mussolini and
Hitler had agreed ten years earlier: those who conformed could stay, and the
rest had to surrender to the state most of their possessions and leave for
Italy. There they should have been welcomed as brothers, whereas the majority
ended up in collecting camps composed of barracks, often viewed with suspicion
by the local population, who saw the mas pro-Fascists fleeing Socialist
Yugoslavia.
But no doubt it’s
almost certain that De Gasperi, then head of the government, must have been
thinking about another problem: the sovereignty of the Alto Adige had also been
put into question by its German inhabitants, plus those who had opted for
Germany but who now wished to return to their birthplace. He entrusted his
trusty colleague Andreotti to sort out the problem, and it was thus that many
refugees from Fiume ended up back in Fiume, where they formed a real and proper
colony, though pro-Italian, composed of many professionals, who in a few years
succeeded in reaching high ranking positions and to favour the recruitment of
other Istrians and natives of Fiume.
Vittoria
Spazzi-Karpati was amongst the last to leave Fiume, and definitely the last
member of the family to do so. She had to surrender her home to the State and
she left with very little. Naturally she went to stay with her son in Bolzano,
but things had changed since she had left four years earlier. Mostly because
she had deteriorated in body and in health now that she was 85. Not long after
she had to go into a nursing home for sick old people. Vittorio found one near
Trento and also paid for a woman to care for her, since she was now unable to
leave her bed. It was sad and painful to go and visit her, and see her still
sound of mind but sick in body. It took nearly two years until she died, for her
at long last, on 25th July 1951.
But what had been
happening in Vittorio Karpati’s family after his mother had gone back to Fiume?
As already mentioned, Akos’s wife Elda had come with her two daughters. But
Iginia, one of Emma’s sisters, had also come seeking shelter with her husband
and two children, while they waited for things to settle down from the
immediate post-war confusion. In Italy it was above all post-civil war, where
even a neighbour could be the enemy. The Karpati home had become so crowded
that for a while Vittorio had to sleep in the porch. Sharing wasn’t at all
easy, with frequent quarrels about sharing costs and fitting in with each other’s
needs.
Then, little by
little, things began to settle down. Elda and her daughters moved to Milan,
where Erna became a teacher of literature and Laura graduated first in
mathematics and subsequently in medicine. Not long after Iginia’s husband found
work again. They found a house to live in and peace returned to the home. Meanwhile
Vittorio had been promoted to Deputy Superintendant, a satisfying reward after
so many hassles.
As for the children,
Mirella unfortunately lost her job, as people were reinstated who had been made
redundant with the arrival of the Germans. She started supply teaching in
mountain villages, even though this meant getting up at dawn and coming home in
the evening, often walking long distances between villages to reach more
schools, which was fine in the summer, but cold in winter and wearisome in spring
when the snow was melting and she often had to trudge through the mud. Giorgio
had finally found a job with the Bank of Italy, but this meant he had had to
move to Trento. A job with the local authority had finally come up for
Giovanni. The last, Giulio, had been sent to the military college at Modena,
not so much as to follow that as a career, but so he could study engineering
for two years free of charge, before following that route. In practice Mirella
had also already enrolled at university, although it was wartime, but her
father had been quite clear in saying that he had to prioritise his sons’
education. This was the reason why she’d started to look for a job, so she
could finance her own studies, even though nearly everything went to support
the family’s expenses.
Then in 1949 Vittorio
had a new problem. Some of the South Tyrolese who had left to live in the Reich
in 1939, having chosen that option, were coming back. Again their were
officials who kept on eye on the situation and sought to get rich on the
compensation and the allocation of houses and land. Vittorio, upright as always,
denounced this. Some officials were removed, but he too was required to retire.
It was a bitter epilogue, even if at sixty, with his health declining, he
certainly deserved some peace and quiet. He still had time though to see the
birth of his first grandchildren, Bianca Maria and Michele, Mirella’s children,
and to see Giorgio’s wife pregnant with their first child. He talked about it
with her when on Palm Sunday, 5th April 1954, they went out together to a
restaurant. He asked Nora the expected due date, and hearing that it was to be
in June, sighed, ‘Then I won’t see it.’ He was joking, but that evening he
suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and died a few hours later. There were many at
his funeral, some never seen before, and many said to his children, ‘We’ve lost
a good man.’
His wife Emma went
into a deep depression, it seemed as though her life had ended too. For months
she was there, apathetic, unwilling to see anybody. To cheer her up Mirella
paid for a trip to Lourdes, as her mother was very religious. When Emma came
back she seemed reborn, the experience had rekindled in her the desire to do
something. She joined UNITALSI, the voluntary organisation that supports sick
people on pilgrimages, and a few years later founded a new branch in Bolzano.
She organised fund raising, in front of churches she sold carnations that she
had specially sent from San Remo. When she donned her uniform she was
transformed, and they called her ‘the colonel’. This was her new mission in
life for many years, until, just as she came back from a pilgrimage, she
suffered a heart attack. Forced to give up all activities, her children found
her a place at the Bürgerheim in Bressanone, where she had excellent medical
support and her son Giulio was able to visit her every evening on his way home
from work.
When the final crisis
came, she asked her son to burn the letters that Geza had written to his ‘May
rose’ during the years they had been together. Even though in public he had
always been reluctant to show emotions and feelings, anybody who had managed
even to read a little of ths letters would have been struck by them and how
full of tenderness they were. Emma passed away in 19th August 1988.
Let us go back a little
to after Vittorio’s death. Only Pia survived from that generation, the elder
daughter, the one who lived in Hungary. Only her nephews and nieces were left
of her family in Italy. Moreover, her age, and the hardening of relations
between Western Europe and the East stood in the way of travelling to Italy.
She wrote every so often but they never saw her again. Only news came of her
death at the age of eighty on 2nd February 1965. The story of those two
generations ends with the deaths of Pia and mamma Emma.
I shall add only a
little about the next generation, as it would be right to first check what they
feel about it, and what they want to share with their children. Erna, Akos’
elder daughter, settled in Milan, where she eventually married the man she had
long been in a relationship with, and who brought two daughters with him, one
for each of his two previous marriages. Nedda, after two degrees, started in
her profession as a doctor, firstly at Ostia, near Rome. However, when her
little two-year old daughter Licia died, she in desperation decided that if she
couldn’t care for her own child, then even less could she care for the children
of others. She abandoned medicine and took a job teaching mathematics,
eventually becoming headteacher. In retirement she worked with Caritas to help
problem children.
Passing to Geza’s
other children, Giorgio worked in the Bank of Italy for twenty-four years,
moving to Perugia and venice before being able to return to Bolzano. In
retirement he discovered Lake Garda, which reminded him of Fiume in some ways,
the city which had always been in his heart. He moved there, passing his last
years at Torbole and later at Arco. He was always reserved and a bit solitary,
quite similar in character to his father.
Giovanni, who is
always called ‘Nini’ by the family, lived a quiet life as a council employee at
Bolzano, but his passion was always travel. He collected books and showed
photographs of faraway places where he had been and where he would have liked
to travel. He was perhaps the happiest and most extrovert of the family.
Giulio, the youngest,
was perhaps the one whose life most affected by Vittorio’s death, while he was still
at the military college. He didn’t become an engineer as had been expected of
him. Instead he followed a military career, ending as a colonel in the Alpini,
the Italian mountain troops. The rank gave him the right to wear a white
feather on his hat instead of the usual black feather, a sign of distinction
for ‘the other officers’. I wonder if he knew that in the troop it was seen as
the easiest way of knowing who would be put on guard duty. He worked at brigade
headquarters in Bressanone and it was he who was near to their mother in her
last days.
Lastly we come to
Mirella, because her life was the most out of the ordinary. Gradually she began
to teach in schools less deprived than those mountain schools where the classes
were all ages. She taught at all levels, from primary (which always stayed her favourite,
because there children’s intelligence develops amazingly), to secondary, and
finally university, as a lecturer after receiving her qualification in
education. But in 1959 almost by chance she came into contact with a world that
nice people prefer to avoid, that of the gypsies. She sought to understand it,
to comprehend the social mechanisms of their lifestyle, and their history. A
strange world opened up to her, crossing all the borders of Europe, with its
roots deep in the Middle Ages. She discovered stories of persecution and
violence that were hidden, such as their holocaust, like that of the Jews.
Perhaps she inherited from her mother her passionate commitment, but from her
father his rationality. She never hid the negative aspects of their lifestyle,
including the subordinate role of women to men. But also there was a culture
and an artistic tradition waiting to be discovered. Above all she felt that it
was not possible to live together without understanding them, believing that
they just need to adapt to our lifestyle.
For over thirty years
this was her main preoccupation, which saw her help found Opera Nomadi in 1963,
and then in 1965 she became editor of the jounal for gypsy studies ‘Lacio Drom’
for many years. She was also the national coordinator for gypsy children’s
education. She moved to Rome in 1970, and had many links with the world of
politics and the Vatican, to promote initiatives for integration and
understanding. She wrote twelve books on these issues, and translating many
others, thanks to her excellent knowledge of many foreign languages. She
travelled throughout Europe, personally visiting many Roma communities.
When she reached
seventy she decided it was time to retire to a small house in the mountains,
passing the baton to younger people who had worked alongside her. She didn’t
like growing old, but she just had to accept what destiny intended. Of the many
awards that she received in the course of her career I shall mention only the
last one: on 30th January 2005 the Rome Jewish community awarded her the
diploma ‘Guardian of Remembrance’ for her studies of the gypsy genocide.
There is a striking
resemblance between her story and that of Paolina Schiff, the person who
appears at the beginning of this story. She wrote about her as being
emancipated and advanced for her time, who refused to be supported by a man.
Furthermore she fought for a difficult cause with determination and intelligence,
creating a network of contacts. As well as fluency in several languages, she
was cultured and an art lover. At the end she asked to be cremated like
Paolina, though nowadays that is much more common. Singular too is the date of
her death on 5th August, just one day before that of her distant relative.
I have dedicated more
space to Mirella because she was my mother.
This generation has also
ended its journey through life. Firstly Akos’ children in 2000, Giulio’s in
2009, and finally Vittorio’s first three children, Giorgio, Nini and Mirella,
one after the other, just as they were born in three years.
The story ends here
with them, though obviously life has carried on. There are eight children and
nine grandchildren plus one on the way. Even if some of us have already
completed a good piece of the journey and should have stories to tell, the
majority have their life ahead of them before they write it down.
An exhortation for
everybody, including those who have read this story:
‘Lacio Drom’, the
name of Mirella’s journal, which means ‘Have a good journey.’
