Gino Bartali: The cyclist who saved Jews in wartime Italy
As
one of the cycling world's biggest races, the Giro d'Italia, begins in
Belfast on Friday, more is being learned about the daring activities of
one of its former winners in wartime Italy.
Film director Oren Jacoby is describing Gino Bartali, one of the leading cyclists of his era - a three-time winner of the Giro d'Italia, who also notched up two Tour de France victories, 10 years apart, before and after the war.
During his lifetime, Bartali didn't talk about his wartime activities.
It was only after his death in 2000 that details began to emerge, and Jacoby fills in some remaining gaps in a Storyville documentary film about Italy's secret heroes, due to be premiered this year.
Bartali, a villager from a poor Tuscan family, was reaching the peak of his career as the war approached.
Gino Bartali competing in the Tour de France in 1938
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Gino Bartali
- Born in Florence in 1914
- Started work as a mechanic in a bicycle shop, became a professional cyclist in 1935
- Won the Giro d'Italia in 1936, 1937 and 1946, and the Tour de France in 1938 and in 1948
- Great rival of the younger Italian, Fausto Coppi, who won the Giro and the Tour in 1949
"Mussolini believed that if an
Italian rider triumphed in the Tour it would show that Italians too
belonged to the master race," says Bartali's son Andrea in Jacoby's
film.
Bartali was invited to dedicate his win to Mussolini, but refused. It was a grave insult to il duce and a big risk to take.
In the middle of that year's Tour, Mussolini had published a Manifesto on Race, which led later to Jews being stripped of citizenship or any position in government or the professions.
Italy remained, however, a country in which Jews could take refuge, until it surrendered to the allies in 1943. The German army then occupied northern and central parts of the country and immediately started rounding up Jews and sending them to concentration camps.
At this point Bartali, a devout Catholic, was asked by the Cardinal of Florence, Archbishop Elia Dalla Costa, to join a secret network offering protection and safe passsage to Jews and other endangered people.
His role in the network was uniquely suited to his talents - he became a courier. On the face of it he was undertaking the long training rides for which he was renowned, but in reality he was carrying photographs and counterfeit identity documents to and from a secret printing press.
Bartali's bike on display in the cycling museum in Madonna del Ghisallo Church, Lombardy
"We've seen documentation that he travelled thousands of kilometres across Italy, travelling the roads between cities as far apart as Florence, Lucca, Genoa, Assisi, and the Vatican in Rome," says Jacoby.
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Nazi occupation of Italy
- Mussolini formally signs non-military alliance with Hitler's Germany in October 1936
- In July 1943, Mussolini is dismissed from office and placed under arrest
- Italy surrenders to Allied forces in September 1943, with Germany occupying northern and central Italy in response
- By June 1944, over 8,000 Jews had been rounded up and deported from Italian territories by the Nazis
- Mussolini is captured and shot dead by Italian partisans on 28 April 1945
By taking on this role, he put
himself at huge risk. At one point he was arrested and questioned by the
head of the Fascist secret police in Florence, where he lived.
In addition to this, Bartali hid his Jewish friend Giacomo Goldenberg, and Goldenberg's family.
"He hid us in spite of knowing that the Germans were killing everybody who was hiding Jews," Goldenberg's son, Giorgio, says in Jacoby's film.
"He was risking not only his life but also his family. Gino Bartali saved my life and the life of my family. That's clear because if he hadn't hidden us, we had nowhere to go."
Approximately 80% of Italian and refugee Jews living in Italy before World War Two survived, partly thanks to the efforts of Italian sympathisers.
It's taken a lot of detective work, by a number of people, to piece Bartali's story together over the last 14 years.
Andrea Bartali says that eventually little by little his father told him about his actions during the war but made him promise not to tell anyone at that time.
Bartali's son Andrea visits the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel
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Seventy-five years ago in Fascist Italy, a group of gay men were labelled "degenerate", expelled from their homes and interned on an island. They were held under a prison regime - but some found life in the country's first openly gay community a liberating experience, writes Alan Johnston.
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In 1943, Italy officially changed sides in World War Two, making peace with the Allies against Nazi Germany. It was the beginning of a new chapter in the life of one little Jewish boy in Florence, Marcello Buiatti, whose family suddenly had to go into hiding, writes Dany Mitzman.Seventy-five years ago in Fascist Italy, a group of gay men were labelled "degenerate", expelled from their homes and interned on an island. They were held under a prison regime - but some found life in the country's first openly gay community a liberating experience, writes Alan Johnston.
According to Jacoby, Bartali's
reticence is a "defining characteristic" of many of the Italians who
were willing to risk their lives in World War Two.
Last September he was posthumously awarded with the honour Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and education centre in Jerusalem.
"When Bartali was stopped and searched, he specifically asked that his bicycle not be touched since the different parts were very carefully calibrated to achieve maximum speed," the citation points out.
Andrea Bartali says his father refused to view his actions as heroic.
"When people were telling him, 'Gino, you're a hero', he would reply: 'No, no - I want to be remembered for my sporting achievements. Real heroes are others, those who have suffered in their soul, in their heart, in their spirit, in their mind, for their loved ones. Those are the real heroes. I'm just a cyclist.'"
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