YOUR GREAT GRANDPA RENATO

Given that I know that you, my two treasures, come here to look at what I publish, I want to tell you the story of your great grandfather Renato (father of my own mother – your nonna from Venice).

His story is that during WWII he was the main manager of a train station outside of Venice and since he knew of the thousands of Jews being transported to the concentration camps, he used to go with some of his friends where the train had to slow down due to either a bridge or a sharp turn and using a metal tool he was breaking open some carts of the trains that would let free Jews by the hundreds, who would run towards the woods to hide.

Well my own nonno never told me how many times he did that, nor approximately how many Jews had the chance from him to survive the concentration camp where they were all going to be in few hours.

The one thing that’s certain for me is that given that he died in his sleep without any suffering of any kind, he must have been blessed for what he  did around 1943.

The other thing I want to tell you is that when the American planes started to bomb the hell out of our country, your nonna/my mother was going in the middle of big fields behind the train station where she lived with her family and she would be terrified because the planes that were dropping the bombs by the hundreds, were doing it pretty much above her head, your nonna was a young teenager, so she didn’t know that when the plane is at a speed of several miles per hour the bomb must be dropped well before because they keep the same speed,

Your nonna/my mother tells me that still today - more than half a century later – she wakes up in the middle of the night screaming because she still dreams to see the bombs dropping on her head.

Well I put here few pictures and videos of what I’m talking about, but believe me that I can tell you dozens of other stories of our family, all WWII related.

1. http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/holocaust.htm
2. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005469
3. http://endgenocide.org/learn/past-genocides/the-holocaust/
4. http://www.mjhnyc.org/?gclid=CLuIheju5dECFQRsfgodXuwNzQ
5. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/timeline-of-jewish-persecution-in-the-holocaust
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust