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By Christopher Dickey
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In the end, there were 74 children--Jewish kids, from the ages of 6 to 18, who in 1942 and 1943 fled from Germany, Austria and Yugoslavia as their parents disappeared into the Nazis' concentration camps. With borders closing all over Europe, a Zionist organization smuggled them into northern Italy, to the village of Nonantola, built around a Benedictine monastery. Though Fascist Italy was not a haven, it was as safe as could be found. Their refuge was a large empty house, the Villa Emma, rented for them on the edge of town.
Their story stands out as a singular moment of reason and humanity in the savage history of the Holocaust, an example of the values that Pope Benedict XVI today identifies as the Christian heart of Europe, and one that the priests in the village expect he will acknowledge in the next few months. It is a tale of courage, of rare integrity in the face of fear and oppression--but most important, it is a shared tale. From the start, empathetic townspeople brought food for the children of Villa Emma. They were supposed to keep to the house, for fear of prying (and potentially traitorous) eyes. But, being kids, they of course did not, and soon were making friends in the neighborhood, so much so that within months they had more or less been adopted by the village.
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Then, on Sept. 8, 1943, Mussolini fell and the Italians signed an armistice with the Allies. Nazis rolled across the borders in force. That same night, the adults who had shepherded the children into Italy met with a local doctor, Giuseppe Moreali. He contacted a young priest at the Benedictine monastery, Don Arrigo Beccari, who persuaded the abbot to take in as many of the children as he could. The night of Sept. 9, with Nazis occupying the town, 30 of the youngest boys and girls crept through the darkened streets to the monastery. The others found refuge in the houses of farmers, shopkeepers and artisans.
In Rome, Jews were rounded up with all the lethal efficiency the Nazis had perfected. Just outside the Vatican walls, a plaque on the wall of a villa along Via della Lungara commemorates "entire families of Roman Jews dragged out of their houses and held in this building for deportation to the death camps. Of 1,000 people, only 16 would survive." But for five weeks, the people of Nonantola kept the children safe until, at last, they were able to escape to Switzerland. Every one of them survived, except a young boy from Sarajevo who had earlier been placed in a sanatorium in the mountains, where the Nazis found him. He died at Auschwitz.
Beccari, the young priest who played a key role helping the children, is now 95, ailing and unable to talk. Father Ricardo Fangarezzi, the monastery archivist, speaks for him. The town is proud of its anti-Fascist heritage, not all of which was connected to the church. But Fangarezzi insists, "You must remember, it is Christian values that drove the people of Nonantola." It is the kind of lesson that Benedict XVI embraces. "It's easy to forget conveniently the recent past, but this pope has already shown he will not. He can be a bridge to forgiveness and understanding, but, more importantly, he can unify Christians by not ignoring our mistakes. He is one of the few who could do this successfully." He and the good people of Nonantola.
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