Viaggio Interotto
The story of a pre-teen girl of Italy during World War II and
her emigration to America to join her father and uncles after
the war.
********************
A first hand account of the German occupation of a small village
near Parma, the partisans fight for liberation, the aid to
downed
American airmen and finally uniting the family in America.
*********************
This is the personal story of Bianca (Pellicelli) Sapporetti as
told to Howard Rouse with a hope of finding the downed flyer
that the family aided in Monchio delle Corti prior to his return
to the Allied lines.
by Howard Rouse
March
18, 2007 — This narrative opens with a journey, that is not
interrupted, (interotto), but closes with a voyage that was
interrupted. The first trip brought Dante Pellicelli from the
beautiful Italian village of Monchio delle Corti, to America.
The year, as far as we can determine, was shortly before the
turn of the last century, (1898-99). This was during a time of
increased migration of Italian citizens to the country where the
streets were professed to be, “paved in gold”.
Shortly after arriving, Dante
married an Italo-American lady, Maria, and they settled in
Salem, Massachusetts, not very far from where he worked, in a
local foundry. He would ride the bus to work each day and never
owned an automobile throughout his lifetime. Both of them lived
into their nineties and had been married 65 years when Dante
passed away at 96 years-old, with Maria following shortly at the
age of 94.
The preceding paragraphs are important to this story, in that
Dante convinced his brothers, Virginio and Guido, that they
should follow him to this new land. Virginio, did not decide to
leave soon enough, and was conscripted into the Italian Army to
serve in an Artillery Brigade during World War One, a delay that
proved unfortunate, because his military service left him with
blown eardrums and profound deafness for his remaining days. He
did manage to recover some of his hearing, with a bone
conduction device that was worn behind the ears. Guido, the
younger brother, did not serve in the army but he did follow his
older brothers to America. He made the trip a couple of years
after Virginio, who arrived in 1919. Guido was a happy-go-lucky
type of guy who wound up working at the Statler Hotel in Park
Square, Boston for many years, while Virginio took a position in
the kitchen of the Mansion Inn of Cochituate, to eventually
become the chef for over thirty years.
Virginio was undecided as whether to stay in the US or to return
to his homeland, but he did become a naturalized American
citizen in 1931, and that was when he returned to Italy and
married a beautiful young lady named Ercolina Campelli, who’s
family lived in the same area of northern Italy where he was
born. After his marriage he returned to the United States and
his work. On an earlier trip, being a man of comparative wealth,
he had purchased the local inn in this village of three thousand
people. Called, “Pellicelli Trattoria” and operated by
Virginio’s sister, this inn was a center of activity in the
village and was located in a valley between two mountains, this
section of the country was dotted by many little hamlets, one
with a population of three hundred people, named Trecoste, which
you will hear more of, later in this story.
Ercolina, now married, lived at her sister’s farm in the village
of Trecoste, not far from their father’s home. This is where
“Lina” gave birth in 1932, to the heroine of our story, who was
named, Bianca. A few years hence, she was to experience a
difficult childhood during World War Two, but that is getting
ahead of our tale.
Page Two
Bianca, daughter of an American citizen, grew up being cared for
by her mother and an aunt and living close by her grandfather’s
farm, who she called, “Nona” but his name was Giacamo Campelli.
This little girl’s growing up years were typical of her
playmates in a tiny Italian village, except that she was smaller
and thinner than most, which would prove to be beneficial in her
future.
Virginio’s sister became ill and could not run the inn, so
rather than abandon the operation; it was taken over by Bianca’s
mother, Ercolina, as her husband owned it. This was quite an
undertaking by the young bride but hard work was a way of life
at this time and this place.
There were six upstairs rooms to rent, some of which were rented
by the month, plus two private rooms for meetings or parties;
and the downstairs had a kitchen, living and dining room.
Attached was a large garage that housed the buses for the local
bus routes, while over the garage was a large function hall for
dances or other large gatherings. The local constabulary rented
some of the rooms because their own quarters were not of
sufficient size to house all of the police force. More than
likely they were a regional unit. Meanwhile, back in America,
Virginio was not idle but was putting away the funds to bring
his wife and daughter to America to share his life. Putting
things in perspective, the Inn was closed in the winter months
when the owners would move to operate a second restaurant in
Florida. Most winters, Virginio would make the move with the
owners, to work in the southern location, but on occasion he
would return to Italy to visit his family and make plans for
their ocean voyage. One of these visits occurred in September of
1937, to make arrangements for visas for his American daughter
and a relative’s visa for his Italian wife. The paperwork, that
can take forever, was in preparation through the nearest city
with an American Consulate. Virginio’s visit in 1937 resulted in
another pregnancy for Ercolina and though the visas were in
place, her pregnancy had progressed to the third trimester, just
at the time that the family would embark on the ship to America.
It is now, the year 1938. The extent of the pregnancy negated
shipboard travel, so the emigration voyage was “interrotto,” to
be attempted again following the birth of the couple’s second
child.
The political climate in Europe was less than ideal at the time
of the birth of Georgina Maria Pellicelli, in May of 1938. Even
though all was in readiness for the exodus, war clouds
intervened and an Edict from Benito Mussolini cancelled all
travel from Italy for the duration of the war. Now, with a
father in America, mother with two daughters in Italy and a war
on the horizon, along with the uncertainty that comes with no
contact or communication available, they were left with the
horrible possibility that they might not survive the duration of
the conflict and never become a complete and united family.
Page Three
There is a happy ending to this narrative but not before Bianca
has some very trying experiences that involve the German
occupation of Italy. This was at the time when the Axis
partnership fell apart and Mussolini became persona non grata to
the Third Reich. It was a difficult period for Italy and its
people for now they were fair game for Nazi plunders. The
Italian people were seized for labor and what little food
supplies they had, were taken and shipped to Germany for the
starving population and military units in the Fatherland.
The earlier years of the war had a minimal affect on the little
villages that were off the beaten track, but with the advent of
the American and British invasions of Sicily, followed by
another at Anzio, there was the start of military action up the
“Boot.” The Italian partisans, who were anxious to drive the
Germans from their country, became an important adjunct to the
movement of Allied troops, as the soldiers moved slowly from
town to town opposing each combat line of German forces. The
United States GIs had in their ranks many first generation
Americans of Italian extraction who spoke the language and/or
had relatives living in the country, a condition that worked to
the advantage of the U.S. military, by way of information
regarding German troop movement and a closeness with the locals
not normally available to invading forces. These were the
conditions that existed in the spring of 1944 with pitched
battles, and bombs falling from American planes and the
devastation that is part of war, as the little Italian mountain
villages are in the path of retreating German units along with
the expectation of advancing Allied soldiers.
It is in the Spring of 1944 when the little inn, “Pellicelli
Trattoria” received a visit from a unit of the dreaded German SS
troops. The officers along with their aides commandeered the
hotel for their headquarters and billeting. The innkeeper,
Ercolina with her daughters, Bianca aged 11 years and Gina of 5
years, are the only occupants who were to provide the sleeping
and dining accommodations for the Germans for the duration of
their stay. After the work was done for the day, Lina would take
the two girls to a relative’s home in the village, for sleeping,
only to return to the inn, the following morning.
The villagers were very apprehensive with the expectation that
fighting might break out if the Italian partisans, who had
campsites all through these mountains, decided to eliminate this
band of Germans. At the same time, over in Trecoste at the farm
of Ercolina’s father, Giacamo Campelli, there were eleven
American flyers that had been shot down and rescued by the
partisans. They were being hidden in the sub-cellar of Giacamo’s
home waiting for the opportune time to be reunited with an
Allied unit or a method of transport to an American ship off the
coast. German troops armed with machine pistols patrolled in the
area of this farmhouse and were totally unaware of the hidden
airmen, but Giacamo with his feisty nature was determined to
help the Americans.
Page Four
This group of SS troops were in Monchio delle Corti for about
one week when they made preparations to leave. The commanding
officer instructed Ercolina, who had been preparing the meals,
that he required four cakes for a celebration party for the eve
of their departure. In frustration, she explained that she had
no flour, sugar, eggs and other ingredients for such delicacies
but the officer would not hear of it and told her he would
acquire the items from the people of the village.
He provided the necessary ingredients and the cakes were
promptly prepared for the CO’s celebration. Hot from the oven,
the cakes were placed on a cooling rack in the living room of
the inn. A German soldier, who discovered the cakes cooling,
decided to play a joke and hide one of them with the possibility
of enjoying it later with his companions. The officer who
returned to determine if his orders had been carried out,
spotted only three cakes in the rack. He became enraged and
shouted at Ercolina and the two daughters demanding his four
cakes. Ercolina assured him that she had prepared four and had
placed them to cool, but the officer pulled out his pistol and
threatened the young girls with death for stealing one of the
cakes. They denied any theft and knew nothing of the
disappearance of their mother’s work. The soldier who took the
cake could hear the uproar that his prank had caused, and
realizing that returning the cake was the only way to turn aside
the extreme anger of his CO. He returned his loot to the cooling
rack, sheepishly and asked forgiveness for his prank. This
officer, who had his pistol in hand, whipped around and shot his
own soldier for this minor indiscretion, there in front of the
mother and her two daughters.
The celebration of departure was held and the SS unit departed
the next day with all the goods that had been stolen from the
citizens during their short stay. Foodstuff and animals that
could be driven along the line of march were all prime targets
for pillaging. The thievery had been anticipated but the raping
of the young ladies of the village had not been, at least to the
degree that it happened. Bianca, who was 11 years old at this
time, did not experience this indignity, most likely because, as
pointed out above, that she was small in stature and extremely
thin and certainly did not look her age. Gina was only five
years old at this time and most likely unable to comprehend the
strange activities that had visited her village.
In Bianca’s recollections of the departing soldiers, she relates
that dynamite or TNT had been placed in the major structures of
the village, including the church of St. Guisseppe. As the time
approached for the destruction an apparition appeared of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, over the church, that threw the soldiers
into a panic and they abandoned all thoughts of blowing up the
village and disappeared in the night.
Page Five
This was the second time that the church was spared by virtue of
a story told to Bianca, by her grandfather, that long ago there
was an enormous landslide from the mountain that fell upon the
village, with great destruction, but it parted at the church and
was deflected to pass on each side with no damage to St.
Guisseppe.
Bianca’s village resumed a degree of normalcy, following the
departure of the SS troops but the American forces were
advancing from the South and in the Fall of 1944 another
contingent of German soldiers arrived in Monchio delle Corti.
Not the dreaded SS, this time, they were regular army troops who
were apologetic about their intrusion, but not so much that they
did not steal everything and rape the women.
The Italian partisans were very active in this mountainous area,
at the closing months of 1944, as the Allies had made great
progress above Rome. American planes were still crash landing
and the occupants were being rescued and hidden by the
partisans. One of these airmen was picked up and brought to the
inn for hiding which, was of great concern to Ercolina, for
discovery by the Germans would lead to dire circumstances for
her and her two little daughters.
This pilot, who had sustained a leg injury, was to be hidden in
a cubbyhole over the ballroom at the inn, until he could be
spirited away to the Allied lines. There was no doctor in town
so the partisans made a splint for his leg and placed him in the
hideaway. Now, it became Bianca’s duty to bring him his one meal
a day, without being observed or missed; and this she
accomplished by going up over the garage in the early evening.
She spoke no English and he very limited Italian, so any
communication they were to have would be by signs and be very
limited. She did convey to him that her father was living in
America — in Massachusetts — and working at the Mansion Inn that
was in Cochituate. He indicated that he knew of the place and
that she should write him a letter that he would deliver on his
arrival back in the U.S.
The letter was duly written in Italian, and addressed to the
Mansion Inn for this personal delivery. Contact was made with
the Allies and a helicopter came to the village to evacuate this
wounded GI. The whole village turned out for his departure and
Bianca tells that before the plane lifted off, “He looked at me
and patted the pocket of his jacket, where he had the letter, to
indicate that it was on the way.”
The airman returned to the States and subsequently visited the
Mansion Inn to deliver the letter, but he did not go inside to
identify himself, rather he placed the daughter’s message in the
mailbox of the establishment and went on his way. His identity
must be known somewhere in the military records but the
Pellicelli family who took great risk to protect him, know him
only as one of their American liberators.
Page Six
Not long after these events, it was a time for the advancing
British and American forces to enter this area in the vicinity
of Parma. Bianca, who is 12 years of age, still small and very
thin, could remember their arrival, close on the heels of the
departing Germans, that was not unlike previous military visits
from the Axis soldiers. They still stole things, they still
raped the women, though not to the degree of the others, and
they moved on through, leaving the village in tranquility,
again.
The final chapter of this saga which involves uniting this
fractured family with the transport to America of Virginio’s
wife and two daughters to a home that he will provide so that
they might live the American dream. Not much was accomplished
along these lines until 1947, due to lengthy intervals for mail
posting, limited transportation, and bureaucratic foul-ups that
caused delay upon delay.
Authenticating the nationality of the daughters and securing the
relative’s visa for mother was painstakingly slow as Ercolina
traveled from city to city by motor coach to process the
paperwork because she would not entrust these important records
to the mail system, which was erratic at best. Everything was in
place by 1948 and passage was booked on a ship, the SS Saturnia,
from Genoa to Boston.
At this point Dante Pellicelli reenters the picture to provide a
home in Salem for his brother’s two daughters, while Virginio
took his wife to live with him at the Mansion Inn. The girls
lived with their uncle and aunt for about nine months, while
their parents were making plans for their own family home. They
found and purchased a home in Cochituate, that was not far from
the Inn. Bianca expressed great love and thanks to her Uncle
Dante and his wife, Maria, for the hospitality and assistance in
accommodating their nieces to the unfamiliar surroundings of
America, made all the more difficult by virtue of the fact that
neither of them could speak any English. This last problem was
remedied by Maria with daily visits to the Salem public library
for books that immersed them gradually and thoroughly into the
new language.
Bianca, now into her 70’s and in possession of a memory that is
quite good, regarding the early beginnings of her life, which
she realizes was very shaky and but for the strange twists of
fate, could have ended almost before it began.
Editor's Note:
Howard Rouse of Framingham, retired from a career in radio and
television, writes about historical events. If you know who the
American flyer is, please contact Mr. Rouse at
who2how2@verizon.net
