This article describes first hand testimony of life as an Italian Jew following  Mussolini’s return to power on the occupation of Northern and Central Italy by the Nazis. It is Como Companion’s contribution to honouring the 80th Anniversary of the Red Army’s liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on 27th January 1945, 

Our protagonist was Alessandro De Daninos, a wealthy financier based in Milan and employed as a director of the RAS Insurance company. He was married to Teresa whose full name was Thèrese Thieron de Monclin and was not of Jewish heritage. They had two children defined as mixed race and brought up in the Catholic faith named Ruggero and Iolanda. A previous daughter, Maria Pia, had died in childhood. In 1942 Alessandro (aged 65 at the time) and his family left their home in Milan to avoid the dangers of allied bombing and rented part of a property in Cernobbio – a town that was becoming overcrowded with other so-called ‘sfollati’ (refugees) from Milan.  

Alessandro De Daninos could not have been more integrated into Italian society, even claiming the title of Knight of the Order of the Iron Crown granted in perpetuity to his grandfather in February 1880  who was the co-founder and later, director of the Trieste-based insurance company – RAS (Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà). RAS now forms part of the Allianz group. 

Alessandro started his diary in January 1942 at the moment when the family was establishing itself in the rented property in Cernobbio.  Early entries reveal how Alessandro was concerned to get his children officially classified as non-Jewish on the strength of his mixed marriage and the children’s adherence to the catholic religion. For this he consulted various lawyers expert in the ‘definition of race’ and in the interpretation of the fascist laws introduced in 1938.  Many of the other entries in 1942 refer to his bids to establish some new insurance companies designed to become part of the RAS group, as well as references to his social contacts within the world of theatre and cinema. In other words, he was having to deal with the complexity of the racist laws introduced by Mussolini but was not at this stage unduly concerned about the future of his family beyond the common need to move out of Milan to avoid the danger of allied bombing. 

We pick up a selection of his entries from October 1942, when the family had already moved to rented accommodation in Cernobbio.

18th October, 1942

It has been like a spring day. I left the house without a coat. Iolanda went for the first time to play football with her friend, Ada Fargion.

NOTE: The Fargions were a Jewish family who owned a large villa in Cernobbio. The father, Eugenio, worked as an engineer for Aeroplani Caproni, an industry critical to the fascist war effort. His work took him often into Switzerland – this access was to prove a lifesaver for him and his immediate family in a year’s time following the Nazi occupation.

11th November, 1942

Gradually we have transported our entire wardrobe and everything possible to Cernobbio: it is a difficult undertaking but one suggested by prudence. Cernobbio has been repopulated as it was last September and fortunately the days are delightful, sunny and mild so as not to create the pressing and problematic need for heating.  The alarms these days are continuous and if not worrying, they paralyze life and block all activity.  At Villa d’Este – reopened regularly with restaurant service – there are a number of friends: the Guida, the Greco, the Scola.

NOTE:  Alessandro at this stage faced no limitation on his ability to work or to be recompensed for it in spite of the Racial Laws of 1938.  He was probably able to apply for a dispensation from the fascist Ministry of the Interior who, at this stage, allowed for the definition of so-called ‘discriminati’ – those Italian Jews granted an exception from the Racial laws on grounds such as previous military or state service. The De Daninos family were in a privileged position due to wealth and social contacts, enabling them to request and be granted this exception.

11th January 1943

Despite my predictions, it was good not to have enrolled Ruggero at the Como Institute because the director’s naivety was too evident: in fact the young Beppi Fargion who had been accepted with reservation at the scientific high school recently abandoned his application since it was rejected by the Ministry of Education. We will see the profit of private lessons!

NOTE: Children of Jewish parentage were forbidden to attend state schools under the 1938 legislation. Alessandro was clearly concerned about providing some solution for his children’s education. He cites the example of Beppi Fargion, the son of Eugenio Fargion, the owner of the Villa Fargion in Cernobbio. As mentioned, Eugenio Fargion worked for the company Aeroplani Caproni with factories in Milan and Switzerland. He, his wife Alma and children, Mario (aka Beppe) and Annamaria, (aka Ada), escaped Italy in September 1943 and were housed in Switzerland by Giovanni Battista Caproni himself. Eugenio’s villa in Cernobbio was immediately sequestered by the German SS and known from that time as the Villa Carminati. This villa became an administrative headquarters and detention centre for the Border Police under Josef Voetterl. Eugenio’s sister and husband were guests at the Villa Fargion in the summer of 1943 and Eugenio had implored them to join him in escaping to Switzerland. They were not as convinced of the dangers under the recently established Nazi occupation (September 1943) and so returned to their home in Ferrara. They were subsequently arrested, placed in the same convoy as Primo Levi to Auschwitz and were both executed immediately on their arrival there on the 26th February 1944. 

Back in January 1943, prior to the Nazi occupation, it would have been hard to have foreseen the future full fanatical vindictiveness of the Nazifascist regime. 

3rd August 1943 

(Following the fall of Mussolini on July 25th but before the Nazi occupation in September) Some friends and collaborators wanted to show their sympathy by sending me verbal and written wishes and wishes for the reoccupation of my position as director: such as Cav.  Damioli, Mr. Palmiotta, Miss Isabella Mancini, the magistrate  Mazzufferi etc. I believe that these are early wishes because the racial laws exist in full for now although a certain tolerance is observed in the newspapers with the resumption of references to Jewish people and with the publication of obituaries of Jewish people. 

NOTE: This brief period from July 25th (the fall of Mussolini and the establishment of the Badoglio government)  to September 8th (publication of the Italian Armistice) had been one of relief that the war appeared over and the forces of fascism defeated. This initial euphoria soon dissipated following the Nazi occupation. The Badoglio government were slow to repeal the 1938 Racial Laws because they did not want to appear to the Nazis as anti-German before they had secured a peace agreement with the allies. The Nazis were not fooled for a moment over the loyalty of their previous ally and used this period to prepare for a full-scale occupation of Italy. Even after the Nazi occupation, the official Italian government only revoked the racial laws as late as January 1944, completing the process later in June. In contrast the allies had repealed all racial laws within the liberated zone in a decree passed in Palermo on 12th July 1943. 

25th September 1943

An entire month of anxieties, fears and worries has passed, the progressive spread of the German occupation and the continuous spreading of catastrophic rumors of kidnappings, murders and attackers has shocked all minds and exasperated souls. Unfortunately the situation worsened after the shameful collapse of the army which caused many soldiers to flee clandestinely up the mountains to which many Jews were added, in turn scared and fearful of being caught and even shot. This fate was reserved for my old friend Tullio Masserani arrested in his villa in Stresa together with his sister Olga, I don’t know under what charge. 

For a month I have been in doubt about what action to take while still thinking that having always lived correctly and conscientiously, I wouldn’t know why I should be beaten or imprisoned just because of race. On the other hand, the cycle of my life is over and since my loved ones, being Catholic from birth, should be immune from any racial revenge, for now I don’t feel like abandoning them in a situation that I would certainly consider difficult for them…. If adverse fate wants to strike me, I have so much faith and stoicism to face it with serene tranquility and painful calm, because the thought of an uncorrupted conscience would support me! Escaping abroad, facing an uncertain future, lasting a month or a year without secure financial support and leaving my family abandoned, would be more painful for me than the sacrifice of my life.

NOTE: Alessandro had perhaps never been a practicing Jew by faith and, like many others, had sought to get his children defined as catholic with the assistance of the clergy as a means of protecting them from discrimination. However we have already noted how this was insufficient in protecting Ruggero from school exclusion.  

22nd November,  1943

I’m back from the old Bidino! (His parental home in the Villa Pavia in Indono Olona in the Province of Varese) To hide from possible German searches on two occasions, I spent a fortnight at the Bidino where Marcella’s (his maternal aunt) generous hospitality welcomed me and granted me a peaceful stay with every comfort.  After many years once again I traveled through the places of my peaceful childhood, the ancient Sancassano which was the patient creation of my poor mother…. Will I go back?

NOTE: Having decided he would not seek refuge in Switzerland, he decided to spend time at his old parental home in Induno Olona. He had declared he was of Jewish heritage in the Census of 1938 and, whilst regretting his honesty at that point, recognised that the nazifascists would be seeking him out in Cernobbio. Why? Because Alessandro, in  a decree passed on 18th November 1943, was classified an enemy of the state to face immediate incarceration in a concentration camp. The Mussolini government issued a bulletin on the 30th November to all police forces confirming that “All Jews, including those previously exempt, of whatever nationality, must immediately be detained in concentration camps. All their goods, property and furniture, are to be seized awaiting confiscation by the state. All those born from mixed marriages who may previously have been considered Aryan are to be placed under police surveillance.”

From the start of the Nazi occupation, many Jews alongside antifascists, disbanded members of the Royal Army and escaped prisoners of war had attempted to flee into Switzerland. Overall 6,000 Jews found refuge in Switzerland between 1943 and 1945.  Of these 3,800 were Italian and 1,700 were either foreign or stateless migrants who had previously sought refuge in Italy from persecution elsewhere in Nazi occupied Europe. However not all Jews seeking safety in Switzerland were accepted until their right to asylum to avoid racial persecution was finally granted in 1944. Those turned back at the border faced immediate arrest and deportation to Nazi labour and extermination camps.

4th January, 1944

Today marks one month since my stay in this delightful Bidino (Villa Pavia) due to Marcella’s immeasurable hospitality and where I took refuge in this very sad moment of my life, in which it seems that my entire short future of existence is fading away due to the wickedness of men! I am here at the Bidino in the refuge of our distant childhood, where the love of our poor grandfather Arnoldo, the subsequent affectionate care of my uncle Angelo in those last years of his widowhood, the sacred fire of conservation on the part of Marcella have created a paradise of memories and of tranquility!  I have the only torturous pain of being far from my loved ones, from Teresa to whom I have handed over the responsibility of all our common interests for which she provides with diligence and meticulous care: from my adored children who fortunately do not yet know how to evaluate the terrible unknown that overlooks their future life and which is an unfortunate thorn in my heart and a source of remorse for a possible – but honest – inadvertence!  (He is referring to his honest declaration of his ethnicity in the 1938 Census).  So far, my refusal to leave Italy to meet my dark destiny in Switzerland hasn’t done me much harm: God  wish it would be the same later: even my voluntary removal from Cernobbio and from my beloved loved ones has so far yielded no fruit, as no one has come looking for me either in Milan or in Cernobbio and the much feared arrest in a camp concentration  has not yet come true: but for how long?

NOTE: From September 1943 the Nazis in the area around Como had as their principal objective an obsessive and pathological search for Jews. Their search was assisted by the paramilitary organisations of the Mussolini state and its local administration who willingly handed over to the German Command the lists of Jews maintained by the local authorities. 

Even the smallest hint of humanity shown by the fascist state in initially excluding those over 70 from arrest and deportation was extinguished by the SS Commander of North Western Italy, Walter Rauff. He insisted on the arrest of even those over 70, the ill, those of mixed race or of anyone previously considered aryan due to religious conversion. Walter Rauff was himself arrested by the Americans on 30th April 1945 in Milan’s Hotel Regina. However he subsequently escaped detention and used the Odessa organisation to flee to South America. He managed to avoid extradition to face trial for war crimes and died in Chile in 1984.

18th April, 1944

I have been here in Cernobbio again for a few days, among my loved ones, in the continuity of this life of fears and uncertainties which constitute a real torture, aggravated by Teresa’s anxieties due to the immediate and threatening behavior of the old owner of the villa who at every moment, encouraged by her friends and from the lady-in-waiting Artali, threatens to send us away. Yesterday for the first time in many months I went to Milan, leaving home – like a criminal – at six in the morning and returning in the dark following the Cernobbio-Como route on foot. On the way by train I only met Boffre with whom I exchanged a few gentle words. In Milan I only met Reiser who I greeted. I took two flowers to the cemetery, accepted a call to the Finance Authority for the property tax and after breakfast I paid a visit to the new parish priest of the Church of S. Trinità, whose parish house was so damaged by the incursion of August ’43: his name is Don Natale Brunella and is a very nice and intelligent prelate who understands the unfortunate situation of these tragic hours and that I hope will be able to help me in complying with a good work.  Here in Cernobbio on April 24th my friend Nuti came to visit me and bring me a bundle of news about Minerva, Italica and Reunion. (Various Insurance companies that Alessandro had been spending time in 1942 seeking to establish.) Tomorrow morning, very promptly, April 29th, I will take the train to Varese once again: I will redo my exile to get away from Cernobbio where too many acquaintances could betray my inappropriate presence! I spent 15 cold days, because frankly the temperature wasn’t kind to me. I had the comfort of my children but the continuous segregation in this august dining room was not pleasant to me: and all this so as not to show myself to our housewife “witch” on whose head sufficient curses will never fall.

NOTE: Whenever Alessandro returned to Cernobbio he could only occupy the dining room of their lodgings so that the landlady would not be aware of his presence. He was certain that she would have denounced his presence to the nazifascist authorities if she became aware that he was there.

9th May, 1944

The days pass in the constant anxieties of my desolate friend and in the constant thought of my children and my Teresa far away and of their doubtful future! If only I would have put everything I own in Teresa’s name and I would have saved my entire fortune!  I torture myself and reproach myself for this act of lack of foresight in me, despite having provided for so many things in this unfortunate period of war! On the alphabetical list of the Jews of Milan that the kindness of my friend Nuti gave me to view, I do not seem to find some names of friends and acquaintances who have thus avoided all the sad consequences of this publication.  I wonder how it was and how much I regret not having also avoided reporting myself in conflict with the provisions of the law, which, not followed by others, have been their fortune because they were never prosecuted or punished! May we be assisted by the confidence that at least this 1944 is the last year of tribulation and that the defeat of the Germans still gives our souls that much desired and dreamed of peace!

NOTE: Here Alessandro regrets his previous honesty in declaring his Jewish heritage on the 1938 Census. 

1st June, 1943

I left the Bidino again – my hospitable hideout – to return to Cernobbio with my loved ones! This journey is both anguish and a great joy for me!  Anguish, because I feel the fearful tremor of Teresa who fears the masked wickedness of the “witch” capable of revealing my presence: joy of spending a few hours with my children and seeing that quiet serenity in them – especially now, after having passed exams, which I am unable to find in myself, even in these days in which everyone’s hearts are agitated and boiling in feverish anticipation of the Anglo-American entry into Rome. But when, how will it happen? Unfortunately, my pessimism does not abandon me and the length of this winter war, which has already spread six months beyond the common and familiar predictions, seems annexed and revocable to me, frightened before my eyes!

Alessandro’s last entry in his diary was dated 5th September 1944 and followed a raid on the Villa Pavia in Induno Olona by fascist army officers. It is assumed they were following up on a denunciation made by an acquaintance or a visitor to the family of the presence of Alessandro. However he was not there at the time of the raid. His diary was seized and handed over to the Prefect of Varese and so came to be stored in Varese’s Archivio di Stato. 

We do not know what happened to Alessandro after 5th September 1944. He does not appear in the database of those who escaped to Switzerland. His death is recorded as being in 1953 or 1954 at the age of 76 or 77. One way or another he and his children were survivors in spite of his honesty in declaring his Jewish heritage back in that fateful census of 1938. Many others of his acquaintance such as members of the Foa, Morpurgo and Fargion families were less fortunate. 

Acknowledgments

This article is based on extracts from “Un inedito memoriale di un ebreo milanese rifugiato ad Induno Olona durante la II Guerra Mondiale”, introduced and edited by Paolo Pietrosanti and available in PDF format from academia.edu

Further Reading

More details about the sequestration of Villa Fargion and the Nazi presence in Cernobbio is available at Wartime Occupation of Cernobbio

Further background on the Nazifascist persecution of Jews in the Como area is available in Como to Chiasso – Trying to Escape the Holocaust

Other articles describing aspects of the Jewish persecution within Como Province include: Como Remembers the Holocaust, Heroism and Disaster in the Vallassina – Holocaust Memorial Day, January 27th, Como’s ‘Viaggi della Salvezza’ – In Memory of the Holocaust, Como to Auschwitz on Convoy 8