L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2018 www.italoamericano.org 18 L'Italo-Americano LIFE PEOPLE MOVIES MUSIC BOOKS T his time of the year, I t a l y s t a r t s g e t t i n g very busy: the Sum- mer is just around the c o r n e r , p e o p l e already tasting it after the long "ponti" of the 25th of April and 1 s t o f M a y . T h e c o u n t r y awakens, shops stay open longer, kids begin thinking about their final exams or that camping trip they've been planning with their classmates. There is more, thou- gh. You know Italians love their sports - just like the Americans - and May is usually the month when the Italian and European soccer champions are crowned: there is always a lot of talking about it. But the real king of the month of May, at least when it comes to sports, is the Giro d'I- talia. The professional multi- stage bicycle race reached this year its 101st edition and counts among its participants the best cyclists in the world. It comes just a handful of weeks before its more famous cousin, the Tour de France and it is considered by many a prelude to it. But for we Italians, the Giro is much more important than the Tour. First of all, you see, it comes seeing us at home, every daily stage touching upon cities and villages, hamlets and towns, running along the coast or clim- bing up the mountains. The Giro is like a relative who comes visit once a year, as regular and preci- se as a Swiss clock; it is a relati- ve we all cherish because he h o l d s c l o s e t o i t s h e a r t t h e memories and tales of 101 years of Italian popular history and of its heroes, the cyclists, athletes who know hardship, sweat and pain, a symbol through the gene- rations of endurance and deter- mination. Italy has always given great cyclists to the world, and it still does. Yet, two and two only are t h e n a m e s e t c h e d i n t o t h e memory of the nation, high up above everyone else, as exam- ples of fair play, talent, good values and, well, healthy sport rivalry: Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi. Some say Coppi was the greatest, others prefer Bartali, b u t t h i s i s n ' t t h e m o m e n t t o speak about that and I am sure Fausto will forgive us for lea- ving him behind and choose to andare in fuga with Gino instead. At least for today. At least for this article. You see Italy, this May, is not only thinking with fondness of Gino Bartali as a great athlete, but also and especially as a great Man. And it will do so on the very first day of the Giro, which this year starts in Jerusalem. Yes, Jerusalem. Gino, class 1914, winner of the Tour de France in 1938 and SIMONE SCHIAVINATO Gino Bartali, a champion and a Righteous Among the Nations And then, 1945 came. Gino continued his career and his life, without ever mentioning what he had done during the war. It was only after his passing, in 2000, that details about it began emerging. Gino's son, Andrea, was the only one to whom the hero told about it, demanding he maintained the secret to himself. When Andrea asked why, Gino, I imagine with that hoarse voice I remember from interviews, said "You must do good, but you must not talk about it. If you t a l k a b o u t i t , y o u ' r e t a k i n g advantage of others misfortunes' for your own gain." In 2013, 13 years after his death, Gino Bartali was official- ly declared Righteous among the Nations, the highest honor con- ferred by Yad Vashem to all those who helped the Jews esca- p e f r o m N a z i p e r s e c u t i o n s during the last war. This week, the Giro begins its 20 day-long voyage through Italy, but it unusually does so from abroad, from Jerusalem. Here, just before the first leg of the race, Gino Bartali will beco- me a honorary citizen of Israel, a gift the State wants to make to a man who truly showed righteou- sness, courage and profound sense of justice. And for us all, Gino remains just that: a man of the 1940s, a man of integrity, with that inse- parable cigarette always sticking out of his lips, a man of good- n e s s a n d s t r o n g m o r a l s w h o rides fast on his bicycle, faster than the wind. Gino Bartali, class 1914, a man of other times who saved with his courage more than 800 lives during the last War 1948 and of the Giro in 1936 and 1937 has been a hero. A real one. In 1943, he helped 800 Ita- lian Jews to escape from the country, thus avoiding deporta- tion and an almost certain death in one of Germany's extermina- tion camps. Gino was already a well know corridor: Italians loved him. With his rugged face and a perennial cigarette in his mouth, he was a quintessential 1940s man: strong, loyal and d e v o t e d t o a w i f e , A d r i a n a , whom he married in 1940 and with whom he shared his entire l i f e . G i n o , i n m a n y a w a y , embodied also the type of Italian man the Fascist Régime wanted to represent the country: cham- pion in a sport where endurance and sacrifice lead the way, he w a s a r o c k o f m o r a l i t y a n d masculinity: just what Mussolini expected. And that was the reason why, when he won the Tour de France in 1938, he was asked to dedica- te his victory to the Duce: he refused. Gino wasn't a Fascist, Gino believed in justice and God, and his ideals and morals were strongly rooted in a place where there was no space for racial superiority, segregation, war. This is why, in 1943, when the Civil War began in the North of the country and the Germans started deporting Italian Jews to central Europe, the cardinal of Florence Elia Dalla Costa thou- ght of him as a perfect addition to a secret network created to rescue the Jews of the area from death. Bartali accepted immediately. The aim of the network was to help local Jews and other peo- ple in danger to escape Italy by offering protection and fake documents to leave the country: because of his "job," Bartali became a courier, hiding docu- ments and passports inside the body of his bike, then riding from Florence to Genoa, Rome, Pisa, Lucca, delivering them to those in need. No one thought much of his trips up and down t h e c o a s t a n d t h e h i l l s o f Tuscany: in the end, he was our hero and champion, he rode a bike for a living and needed to train. Yet, he put himself at a huge risk, because the Fascist police was well alert and knew how to do its job: at some stage, they became very suspicious, to the point he got arrested and questioned, but eventually freed. He even had to go into hiding for a time, finding refuge in Città di Castello, Umbria. Thanks to his courage and strength, 800 people escape Nazi persecution. B a r t a l i ' s s u p p o r t f o r t h e Jewish cause went even further, when he decided to risk his own safety by hiding at home his friend Giacomo Goldenberg and his family while German troops were raiding Florence in search of Jews: Bartali knew he and his family risked their lives, yet, he acted without hesitation. Bartali and Fausto Coppi: the most iconic of all Italian sport pairs

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