Read Online Tomorrow's Vengeance by Marcia Talley - Free Book Online Page A

Fascist government forbid Jewish children from attending schools. Mother taught my little brother and me at home, but in the forties the persecutions got worse. My father was forced to sell his business to Aryans at fire-sale prices, and we lost the gallery that had been in our family for three generations.’
    The unfairness of it, the cruelty, stung me. ‘How awful,’ I said. ‘I heard about the persecutions in Nazi Germany, of course, but Italy?’
    â€˜The racial laws took everyone by surprise,’ Izzy continued. ‘The Jewish community of Rome goes back to the second century BC when the Roman Empire had an alliance of sorts with Judea under the leadership of Judah Maccabeus.’ She shrugged. ‘I think the government wanted to prevent people like my father, who had quite a bit of money, from transferring it out of the country. Father continued working for a while – his work at the Vatican offered him some protection – but when the Germans occupied my country in 1943, they came looking for us.’
    I’d forgotten my biscotti; my coffee had grown cold. ‘Good Lord.’
    â€˜My mother spoke five different languages, Hannah. The Nazis
said
they wanted to employ her as a translator but that was a lie. Instead, they sent my parents to Risiera de San Sabba, a rice mill on the outskirts of Trieste, but it was really a concentration camp. From there, they were taken to Auschwitz.’
    I swallowed hard and put down the biscotti I’d been nibbling, no longer particularly hungry for it.
    Naddie reached out covered Izzy’s hand with her own. ‘I’m so sorry.’
    â€˜That was before the Nazis installed a crematorium at Risiera to save themselves the trouble of shipping undesirables out of the country,’ Izzy said bitterly. ‘I never saw my parents again. The Nazis took everything from us. Everything.’
    I dabbed at my eyes with my napkin, trying to take in the enormity of it all. Like millions before me, I’d had a teary, gut-wrenching visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., but I’d never known anyone who had personally experienced the Holocaust. Those who had survived, like Izzy, were now in their eighties and nineties, and I hoped that testimonies like hers were being recorded before it was too late.
    â€˜How did you and your brother escape the Nazis when they came for your parents?’ I asked after a few moments of respectful silence.
    â€˜When rumors reached Rome that the Germans were coming, my parents sent Umberto and me to live with family friends in the country, the DeLucas, but even there we were not safe. One day, the German soldiers came looking, but the word had gotten around, so the DeLucas hid us under the floorboards under a bed.’
    â€˜Someone had turned you in?’ Naddie asked.
    â€˜Exactly. In those days, it was dangerous to put your trust in anybody. After the soldiers went away, the DeLucas quickly arranged shelter for us in a convent just outside of Rome. My father’s connections with the Vatican made that possible. If it weren’t for that …’ She shrugged.
    â€˜I wore the habit of a novice,’ she continued. ‘The Nazis were watching the convent, I know, and soldiers knocked on the gates from time to time, but even the Nazis wouldn’t mess with the Reverend Mother Francesca Louise!’ She managed a smile. ‘Oh, she could be a terror!’
    â€˜What was it like, living in the convent?’ Naddie asked.
    â€˜What I remember most is being hungry. The nuns shared what food they had with us, but we were always hungry. And the flour had weevils in it.’
    â€˜Ugh,’ I said.
    Izzy’s mouth twitched. ‘Extra protein, Reverend Mother used to say.’
    â€˜And your brother? What happened to Umberto?’ I asked.
    â€˜He got typhus,’ she said simply. ‘He died.’
    â€˜I’m so sorry,’ I said, feeling lower