Italy's Jews repay WWII aid

FOSSA, Italy - More than 65 years after villagers provided shelter to Italian Jews fleeing the Nazis, a group of those who evaded capture rushed to repay that sacrifice in rural communities struck by an earthquake last week.

A delegation of about 20 elderly Jews and their descendants made their way to makeshift camps around the mountain city of L'Aquila yesterday, peering into tents for their old rescuers.

They offered everything from gym shoes to summer camps for children.

"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for these people," said Alberto Di Consiglio, whose parents were sheltered in the hamlets of Fossa and Casentino during the war. "We have to help them."

More than 100 tent cities have risen around L'Aquila and the 26 towns affected by the 6.3-magnitude quake that struck central Italy on April 6.

The temblor killed 294 people and displaced 55,000, damaging or destroying up to 15,000 buildings.

In the chaos of the relief efforts, Jews who had been sheltered in the area during the war lost touch with villagers, many of whom are farmers without cell phones.

At least five Jewish families, about 30 people, took shelter in the mountainside villages of Fossa and Casentino in mid-1943, when German forces began to take direct control of central and northern Italy. They remained there until the arrival of the Allies a year later.

In October 1943, a few weeks after the families left their native Rome, Nazi troops swept in on the capital's Old Ghetto neighborhood and deported more than 2,000 Jews. Only a handful survived the death camps.

The Jews initially hid in Fossa, about 10 miles from L'Aquila, but fled to the nearby village of Casentino when warned the Germans had learned of their presence.

"We left at night; it was winter and the snow was up to here," Emma Di Segni said, gesturing to her waist. "We stayed in a ruined house until a woman took us in."

Although they had fake documents and posed as refugees fleeing Allied bombings, their hosts knew who they were and were aware they could be executed if caught sheltering Jews, Di Segni said.

"They knew what they risked," she said, "but they never said anything."

In one tent, Di Consiglio found Nello De Bernardinis, 74, the son of the couple who sheltered Di Consiglio's father and eight other relatives during the war.

"It's so painful that such righteous people should suffer like this and live in a tent," Di Consiglio said. He reminisced how his aunt was born in the barn of the De Bernardinis family and was baptized in the church to avoid suspicion from authorities.

"Those were difficult times, like today," De Bernardinis said. "The Germans were always looking for Jews, and we did what we could."