The Broken Gramophone and the Stolen Land
I want to tell two stories. Both are part of my family's history, both extremely impactful on the way I live, grow, and think. Because, as an Italian, I have family stories connected to the most turbulent periods in our country's history over the last 100 years, including the fascist era and the periods that followed. Today, these historical periods are often discussed as if they were closed chapters of the past, studied in books. For me, however, they are not just history to be studied, but a living legacy that shaped my ancestors and, by reflection, my own existence.
The First Story
My grandmother was born into a peaceful and economically stable family. They weren't rich, but they lived well. Her grandfather had a textile business that produced specific garments for the Vatican. Her father was a cultured person, intelligent and passionate about technology (I wonder where I got that characteristic from!). He collaborated in the family business, but was also a stationmaster and wrote for some local newspapers. Very active and appreciated in the community. In the early 1900s, he also had a small photography workshop, and many historical photos and postcards of important events were taken by him. For this reason, we have many photos of my grandmother, born in 1920, as a child. Some with her gramophone, which she adored - like many little girls of that era. Many of these photos, unfortunately, have been lost.
When fascism took power in Italy, my great-grandfather was immediately contacted and "advised" that he would have to join the party and write articles aligned with the system. His father was essentially forced (under penalty of losing work contracts with the Vatican itself) and, although reluctant, accepted. He did not. He decided not to openly oppose them, but believed that period was an anomaly that, in his opinion, wouldn't last long. Things, however, went differently.
He was "disowned" by his father (at least publicly) and penalized - the most barbaric and violent part of the community (those who saw him as "successful" and modern) couldn't wait to turn against him. His wife, my grandmother's mother, died very young (I don't know exactly why), but he, as a loving father, still took care of his children with the help of his sister-in-law.
I still remember my grandmother's eyes when, very few times in her life, she told about her family's "night of broken glass". The sun had set a few hours earlier and her father was still at work because some trains had been delayed (so much for those who say trains were always on time back then), so he hadn't come home. As always happened in these cases, his sister-in-law was at home watching the children - my grandmother and her brothers, who were already in bed. She heard knocking and, looking out from a small hidden window, saw a group of men dressed in dark clothes. They were shouting my great-grandfather's name. She understood immediately, ran to the children's room and made them hide under the beds, where she also hid to stay with them.
The thugs broke down the door and began searching. They wanted to give him "a lesson" and, not finding him, decided to break everything they found. Plates, glasses, objects of every kind - both from the house and the children's belongings. They tore clothes, kicked tables and chairs, threw pots on the ground to bend and break them. Unheard-of violence. My grandmother still recounted, with terror in her eyes, those moments. The sound of all their things on the ground, broken and destroyed by the violence of these people. When they entered the bedroom, they saw the children's beds still unmade and thought they had fled. They "limited" themselves to breaking my grandmother's gramophone and the photos of my great-grandmother - the only memory these children had of their mother, who had died recently.
Then they left, saying they would go look for him at the station. To avoid being seen, my grandmother's aunt decided to climb out a back window and run to warn her brother-in-law - but this window was so narrow that, to manage to get through, she injured herself all over (my grandmother remembered the blood) and hurt her shoulder badly. She managed, however, by running, to reach the station before them, and my great-grandfather took refuge, hiding inside a stationary train on a secondary track.
The next day he went to file a report. The local authorities collected the complaint casually and advised him to "understand what times were underway and behave accordingly". The podestà , the highest municipal position in those times, was a close relative of his, but this was of no help.
He died very young - probably, it was said, of brain cancer, but the suspicion of poisoning always remained deeply rooted in many people's minds. My grandmother was orphaned at 15. Some years later, one brother had died, the other was at war. She was alone. She, of extreme intelligence and culture, who associated with the most educated people in the area and dreamed of studying Medicine at university, found herself with distant relatives, not even very kind ones, and with nothing.
My grandfather treated her exemplarily, recognizing her intelligence, culture, and abilities. He was a baker, but felt honored to be beside this woman so beautiful and intelligent, cultured and refined. And she always acknowledged this, thanking him. But she could never forget that everything she was, everything she had, was destroyed in a few years. Her family, devastated. Her dreams, erased. And she didn't tell everything, of this I'm certain. And I will never forget her eyes when she told about all this.
The Second Story
The second story concerns another member of my family, but I won't give further details for privacy reasons. He was a farmer and owned land.
He was a young man who had been orphaned very early. He had sisters who were still very young and his mother, but for various reasons, they couldn't provide concrete work contribution, so he found himself managing everything alone and very, very young. He had the intelligence to understand that he couldn't make it alone and, as was customary in those times, decided to get help from sharecropper families. He, however, was careful but positive, so he gave these people much more than the law itself provided. A few years ago, for example, we met a person who, as soon as he learned of our family connection to this man, told us that his grandparents had been sharecroppers for this gentleman. When their daughter (this man's mother) reached school age (and wanted to study), he said that for the entire duration of the daughter's studies, he wouldn't demand his share, to help the family support her. This person managed to study, graduate and fulfill herself, to the point that she named her son after this gentleman. We had never known this; he had never told anyone. Because those who do good from the heart don't need to tell everyone about it. But anyone who dealt with him knew how good he was.
They were small country villages and there were people who, out of attitude or envy, spoke badly of this gentleman and his family, seeing them as "rich", but they weren't, since they shared much more than necessary with those who worked with them. Not to mention other private reasons and historical dynamics that further reinforced this perception.
When fascism arrived, the village was small and this gentleman tried not to get dragged in. He had an "elderly" mother, sisters still quite young and, despite being of the right age, hadn't married yet. He was absorbed in work, in not going to ruin, and in creating a future for his sisters and for the families who helped him. Even as the years passed, he was focused on the hard daily life, worried about feeding the people he cared about. He therefore didn't join fascism and didn't enlist with the partisans, continuing to work.
Given his condition as fatherless and his role, he wasn't obliged to leave for war and thus managed to continue maintaining a dignified standard of living both for himself and for the families who collaborated with him. For the local anti-fascists, this was "clear proof that he had connections in the party, otherwise he would have gone with the others". Gossips, from whatever political side they may be, always know how to find something to cling to.
When the war ended, in that area there was a strong retaliation against those who had been fascists. In the case of this gentleman, there was no direct attack since, in fact, he had never been one, but that sense of "retaliation" always remained because he hadn't left for war and hadn't enlisted with the partisans - and people who disliked him tried to take advantage of the situation to "punish" him. Specifically (and I have the document that proves it), some of them became politicians and municipal officials. The post-war demographic expansion had generated quite significant growth in the village, and new constructions had become necessary to house the new families.
There was already a law that required a certain amount of public green space for every certain number of inhabitants. That law, over the years, has been further strengthened, but it was already in effect. When this gentleman realized they had made buildable and contracted out (to companies that, it would later be discovered, were connected to cooperatives doubly linked to these officials) the construction of entire buildings right at the border of his land and without any public green space around them, he immediately asked for clarification at city hall: he didn't understand the point of this encirclement. They reassured him because, they told him (and I've seen the related documentation), "in an emergency they could waive that law" and, to prevent the village from expanding too much, they could designate another area as public green space, as long as it was in the same municipality, even if kilometers away. He was reassured but not entirely convinced.
Construction began and finished. Families moved in, and the gentleman received a notice: a summons to city hall. Obviously he went and, to his surprise (but not too much), they informed him that they had built "too much" and needed to create a public park and other "public utility buildings", having reached the critical mass of citizenship for those buildings. They therefore asked for the possibility of purchasing the gentleman's land or, "in case of refusal", to expropriate it. He was stunned: selling was impossible - there was his house, his tools, and the families who worked it. The proposed price, moreover, was insufficient to cover the purchase of another piece of land, cutting off a good part of his family's subsistence (he had another, smaller piece of land not far away). But he positioned himself positively and constructively, trying to find solutions that would be acceptable to everyone, while emphasizing that they had deceived him from the beginning. There was no way to discuss it. This gentleman, no longer very young but not elderly either (a little older than I am today), fell into total anxiety. So severe that he had a serious heart attack, coming close to death. The doctors told him he would have to rest, but he couldn't. He was trying to save the situation. A meeting was scheduled that he tried to postpone, but the officials were inflexible: "if you can't come to us, we'll come to your house". And so it was. When he, still recovering from the heart attack, tried to make a few small observations about how there were other (uncultivated) lands and space to use, the official shouted, "Listen, stop it. You fascists must be stripped of all your assets. If you don't give it to us willingly, we'll take it by force, that is, through expropriation!" He was dumbfounded. Okay, this official was one of those "sitting at the bar talking badly about people who work", but it seemed absurd that after so many years, there was still this (unfounded) accusation of fascism. It was useless that everyone in the village knew this person was foreign to such dynamics. This was the spirit of these people, those who "sat at the bar and envied those who worked". Years later, it would be discovered that in those parts (and not only) many were accused of fascism for the sole purpose of appropriating their assets. But at the time, calling someone a fascist was enough to put them in the public pillory, even without any proof or evidence. And many people, for their own gain, presented themselves as "anti-fascist" solely and exclusively to ride the benefits of the time.
The procedures went forward, so quickly that an expropriation authorization document arrived. Upon seeing the document, this gentleman became so upset that he remained locked in his room for two days, not even having the strength to get out of bed. Then came the final, fatal heart attack.
I'll stop here. I'll only say that, given the "unexpected" event, they managed to hastily organize the execution of the expropriation within 48 hours (incredible timing, in Italy), to carry it out during this person's funeral, convinced that all relatives would be absent. One of them, at the end of the funeral, went to the site of the expropriation and saw the official, with a satisfied smirk, boasting about how he "had taken the land" from this person during his funeral.
Years later the truth would come out: they had built too much, maximizing the builder's profit (a cooperative whose members were, strangely enough, the former "bar chatterers"). In this way, they had cashed in while passing the burden of public green space and services onto this gentleman. For the expropriation of his house, he was awarded a sum comparable to what one would pay today for a mid-level laptop computer.
And the expropriated land? Today it lies uncultivated, almost abandoned. After all, it served no other purpose than to "comply with a law". Public documents today prove this. But many years have passed and all the actors are deceased. In the name of anti-fascism, they plundered a family of honest, correct, and altruistic people.
Conclusion
A man of culture destroyed by fascist violence. A generous man annihilated by the hypocrisy of those who claimed to be anti-fascist. This legacy makes me a convinced anti-fascist, but also a fierce opponent of anyone who, under any banner, uses ideology to crush others. This is why respect for life, freedom, and the dignity of every person are the non-negotiable foundation of my worldview, and this, in turn, I transmit to all my activities.