\u201cCompassion and brutality can coexist in t<\/i>he same individual and in the same moment, despite all logic; and for all that, compassion eludes logic.\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Despite the Racial Laws of 1938- signed by the King and never opposed by the Catholic Church- which stripped them of basic human rights as well as much of their material possessions, the lives of the Jews in Italy had not been physically threatened.<\/p>\n After September 8, 1943, the plight of the Jews in central and northern Italy became dramatic. The Nazis and the die hard Fascists of the Italian Social Repubblic organized raids based on the lists provided by the police: a true manhunt for Jews. Yet, next to informers and fascist collaborators, there were individuals who risked their lives and did not hesitate to hide their fellow citizens of the Jewish faith. The family of Guido Levi, in flight from Milan, found refuge in Valmosca, a small mountain village in a high valley in the Alps near Biella, 867 meters above sea level, about 90 km northeast of Turin and about the same distance from Milan, north-west of the city. The Levi\u2019s arrived in Valmosca at the invitation of Lino Mosca, Guido Levi’s colleague at San Pellegrino, and a native of the valley. They remained hidden in the valley from September ’43 to the spring of 1945. The Mosca family hid them in a local house, in this village of about one hundred inhabitants, where it would have been impossible to hide a family without the tacit agreement of the entire population. Guido Levi took with him his wife, Laura Pirani Levi, his mother Sarah Bettman, and his two children, Roberto and Graziella. Having survived the war and persecution, the Levi family remained in contact with Moscas, visiting them regularly in Milan and returning to the valley to visit them.<\/p>\n After a long search for documents initiated by Claudio Della Seta, Graziella Levi\u2019s son, in 2012 Yad Vashem named Maria and Luigi Mosca “Righteous among the Nations”, awarding a medal to their daughter Elena Goretta Mosca, in a ceremony held in Valmosca, in the presence of descendants of both families.<\/p>\n The history of the Levi family\u2019s stay Valmosca is evoked here by Roberto, Guido Levi\u2019s son, who was about nine years old and is now a distinguished professor of cardiovascular pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York .<\/p>\n Alessandro Cassin: Before the war you were living in Milan; when did you go into hiding?<\/p>\n Roberto Levi: We left Milan at the end of ’43, as the air strikes began. We first took refuge in Tradate, a town about forty kilometers from Milan, where my grandparents had a villa.\u00a0Soon after, we escaped to the mountains in Valmosca near Biella.<\/p>\n AC: Do you know what happened to your Jewish friends?<\/p>\n RL: I lost track of many of them. I knew that my dear friend Alberto, a Jew of Greek origin, went with his family to Seregno, in Brianza.\u00a0 He and I were about 9 and half years old, we exchanged two or three letters, and then I never heard anything more of him. One day, while visiting Israel in 1954, I learned from a Greek cousin of his that my friend and his whole family had been deported to Auschwitz. Years later, in Lilliana Picciotto Fargion\u2019s Libro della Memoria,<\/i> I read the story of his arrest and deportation:\u00a0 they were arrested in Seregno, taken to San Vittore (the prison in Milan) for a week or two, put on trains to Auschwitz and killed upon arrival. No doubt there had been an informer in Seregno who had sold them.<\/p>\n AC: Given the differences in the behavior and attitude among Italian Christians toward the Jews, it is difficult to attribute the impetus of some to help the Jews to a national trait of goodness or generosity\u2026<\/p>\n RL It is not about being Italian!\u00a0 These were individual actions, and the context in which they occurred is often more important or specific than the nationality of the people involved. Our valley was small, isolated: basically a closed society run by women; the men went abroad to work (and during the war they were trapped there). The women were doing even the most physically taxing work. They were farmers, I saw them always with baskets made \u200b\u200bof tree branches, very painful to carry around, with straps made \u200b\u200bof wood: they brought us everything from hay to wood … They were strong people, mostly focused on themselves. They did not pay much attention to others, but I have no doubt people knew that we were refugees.<\/p>\n AC: How many of your relatives were with you in the Valley?<\/p>\n RL: There were five of us: my parents, my sister, my paternal grandmother, and myself. We arrived in October 1943 and only a month later, in November, there was a raid by the S.S. They had come to the valley in search of an anarchist, an anti-fascist\u2026 there were rumors that the schoolteacher alerted them to his presence.\u00a0 They found him in a cellar and they killed him. When we saw the Nazis climb up the stairs of the house, we naturally assumed they had come to take us\u2026<\/p>\n AC: Was the anarchist hidden in the house where you were living?<\/p>\n RL: No, he was in a house very close by. We heard gunshots, probably grenades … Then the women – his wife and sister – who came to ask my father to help them. AC: Your father was a doctor?<\/p>\n RL: No, he was an accountant, my father had not attended University. He worked at San Pellegrino in Milan, where Lino Mosca worked also. Because of the bombing, the factory was moved to San Pellegrino in Val Brembana.<\/p>\n AC: Was it Lino Mosca who advised your father to take refuge in Valmosca?<\/p>\n RL: That’s right. At that time we did not know where to go, one idea was to go to Switzerland by crossing Lago Maggiore, another was -can you imagine? \u2013 to climb the Cervino, walking across the Plateau Rosa, to go into Switzerland… there were people who managed to do all that. But Lino told my father: ” I know a quiet village in an enclosed valley, where I can find you a place to live” and he did. He himself was a native of Valmosca, his wife was from Milano. She and her relatives had found refuge in the valley.\u00a0 Lino was shuttling between Milan and the valley: he brought us some money and whatever else he could.<\/p>\n AC: Did he know that you were Jewish?<\/p>\n RL: Oh, sure, sure. After the first visit of the Germans, my parents told a neighbor, a woman called Maurina, who behaved extraordinarily well. Now she too has passed away but over the years, I saw her several times.<\/p>\n AC: How was your journey to get to the mountains?<\/p>\n RL: From Tradate, near Varese, we took at least four or five trains. From Tradate to Saronno, then from Saronno to Novara, then to Biella, in order not to attract attention. My sister always reminds me that we had a piece of cheese that stank so badly that it left a trail … certainly not the way to go unnoticed! On the train we slit up and sat separately in adjacent compartments. Someone started talking to me, asking me about lots of things that I tried not to answer, (I already had a clear idea of what was going on). My parents looked at me very worried, I could tell from their faces: they were afraid that I would reveal something about our identity. They were well aware of the fact that there were dangers, informers, etc.<\/p>\n AC: In addition to being understandably afraid, do you think your parents felt betrayed by the Italians, their own countrymen?<\/p>\n RL: The shock came with the racial laws in ’38. I was only four years old, so I never went to a public school until later, but my sister was forced to leave and go to a Jewish school …\u00a0In 1943, my parents had realized that there were people they could trust and others not to be trusted. I do not think they had a feeling of betrayal by the general population. They felt that we were all Italians. The racial laws affected each individual differently, there was, for example, the story of “discrimination,” a word that describes exactly the opposite of what it meant.\u00a0 To be \u201cdiscriminated\u201d meant to be exempt from persecution. My grandfather – I don\u2019t know how- had managed to be “discriminated”, perhaps for merits during World War I, when he had fought … My uncle (my father’s brother) who, like my father, was a Zionist, did not wait long, and left for Palestine. My father was more attached to Italy; he had more of a national than an international outlook.<\/p>\n AC: What do you remember of your days in Valmosca and how did you avoid falling behind in your studies?<\/p>\n RL: There were two schoolteachers there, who were also refugees in the valley, and who taught me a bit of Italian and other subjects, but not mathematics. In 1945 I was able to take the examination that allowed me to skip from first grade to the seventh grade.\u00a0 After the war, I attended public school in Biella for a month and then took the exam, which I miraculously passed. I was convinced I would make it, I was very sure of myself, while teachers were far from convinced\u00a0 … in any case it went well and I passed.<\/p>\n The rest of the time, I spent mostly with my father, trying to find something to eat; we moved quite freely in the valley. We went up into the mountains to pick blueberries; potatoes, apples and chestnuts, there were many chestnuts.<\/p>\n AC: What about math?<\/p>\n RL: Emilio Jona, who later wrote, among other things, a very interesting little book called Inverni Alti (Winters at High Altitude), gave me math lessons.\u00a0 The Jona family of Biella was another Jewish family hiding in the valley. For a long time we did not know about them, nor they of us, then one day the people who hid us organized a secret meeting between my father and Emilio\u2019s father in a remote place high up in the the mountains. Then, I do not know exactly how it happened, but that Emilio, who was certainly not a mathematician, but was older (he was perhaps 16 years old) began to tutor me in mathematics.<\/p>\n Emilio became a lawyer, I saw him once after the war, and I asked him if he remembered. Strangely, he did not remember teaching me at all, but I remember those lessons distictly. Later, Emilio\u2019s uncle, his father\u2019s brother, married the woman who had saved them.\u00a0The Jonas had a beautiful house in Biella adjacent to a synagogue, which Emilio to this day continues to take care of, even though he lives mostly in Turin.<\/p>\n AC: Do you think the Jona\u2019s spent more or less the same period in the valley as you?<\/p>\n RL: They came much later, I think in 1944-45. I remember a funny anecdote. My father needed a pair of pants and Emilio knew many people from that area, an area known for textile manufacturing. He said, “I’ll take care of it ” and was able to procure him a piece of cloth from which my father finally had a pair of pants made.<\/p>\n AC: Did you ever go hungry?<\/p>\n RL: Yes, at times we simply did not have enough to eat.\u00a0 We suffered from hunger and from cold because there was no heating. The town was not very high, about 800-900 meters, but it was a rather dark valley, closed and very humid. We had two stoves, which were not enough. My grandmother suffered from cold the most. At the time she was a little more than sixty years old, spoke in the Milanese dialect and her typical phrase\u00a0 while in the valley was \u201cmi sun chi nuda e cruda\u201d <\/i>(I am here raw and naked). She absolutely did not consider what the alternatives could have been\u2026<\/p>\n AC: Did you play with other children?<\/p>\n RL: Yes, yes! One of our neighbor, had two sons Piero and Renzo. They were more or less my age. I have been in contact with Piero, we have also seen each other a couple of times.\u00a0I had also learned a little ‘of the local dialect, they call it “Eval”. Something I mostly forgot, sometimes with my sister we can pull out a few words.<\/p>\n AC: What is the age difference between you and your sister?<\/p>\n RL: She is five years older than me.<\/p>\n AC: Do you think your experiences during the time spent in the valley were similar?<\/p>\n RL: I would say so, even if certain things were obviously a little different. She had more friends. For example, Elena, the daughter of the Moscas, who has received the medal, was my sister\u2019s age. After the war they met again and studied for an accounting diploma together; they were scholmates for 4 or 5 years.<\/p>\n AC: During your period in Valmosca, do you think your parents were aware of the deportations and of what was happening to the Jews? Did you get newsreports?<\/p>\n RL: People used to refer to the deportations with “they brought them to Poland,” but I dont think anyone really knew the meaning of that sentence. I remember at the beginning of December 1943 a bold headline in Corriere della Sera; it said that the Jews must give themselves up, that they would be taken away and so on. Reading it made us very worried, because we were afraid that if the people of the valley read it, anything could happen.\u00a0 We really did not know what was going on in the rest of Europe.<\/p>\n AC: Do you think the people of the valley had clear notion of who the Jews were? Did the word \u201cJew\u201d have much meaning for them?<\/p>\n RL: Well, they were quite religious, very Catholic. To blend in, we went to church – with the exception of my father who never did. My mother, my sister and I went, but I have never served Mass as the other children did, so people more or less knew, or imagined …\u00a0There were very few men. There was for instance the anarchist who made no secret of being anti-fascist and who was killed by the Nazis.<\/p>\n AC: Beside your family were there other displaced or hidden families?<\/p>\n RL: You know the jeweler Buccellati? The Buccellati family had a house in a village nearby and had taken refuge there. They had a boatload of children. I don\u2019t remember if six or seven, some of which were caught in a raid near Biella, when they were capturing men for work in Germany. They managed to free them, possibly by paying large sums under the table. Sometimes on Sundays my father played cards with the Buccelatis and other locals. My father complained: “Buccellati can afford to play with real money,” of course we no longer had any.<\/p>\n AC: Do you think your parents worried about what to do after the war, or they were mainly concerned with survival?<\/p>\n RL: It was more a matter of surviving, but clearly they also thought about returning to Milan, my father to his job. The owner of San Pellegrino was a murky type, mixed up with fascism and I always had the impression he was trying to create alibis that would serve him later … I do not know if I was imagining this, but I think he thought helping some Jews might turn to his advantage after the war.<\/p>\n AC: In addition to the episode of the murder of the anarchist and of seeing the Nazis march up the stairs of the house, did your daily life feel relatively secure, or was it punctuated by moments of panic?<\/p>\n RL: We were often terrified. The last winter in the valley – the winter of 1944-45 – was the hardest. The war was at a stalemate at the Gothic Line. The Fascists and the Nazis spoke of “special” weapons, which we assume were references to the atom bomb … we lived in anguish. Then there was the Repbblica di Sal\u00f2, which had found new vigor. They occupied the valley for a month and a half, more or less in January and February \u201845. During that time we were literally locked in the house. Once I went out to get something to eat with my mother, and we were stopped at a roadblock. Her false documents were not very good (my father\u2019s were also fake, but credible): it went well, the officer who stopped us must not have had much experience with forgeries. My mother was terrified and from that moment she never left the house until the \u201crepubblichini\u201d left the valley. They had come to look for partisans, but had they identified us as Jews, it would have been over. The most impressive thing was that, apart from the officers who were probably in their thities, the soldiers were young boys aged 14-16.<\/p>\n AC: Were there partisans in the valley?<\/p>\n RL: They came and went. At that time the partisans that were there belonged to the Moscatelli Brigade, a Communists formation. My father was afraid because there were the stories of young people who were shuttling between the Republicans and the partisans and there was always the danger that they would come to know that there were Jews in hiding. We did not have a radio or access to papers, so the absence of reliable news created more anxiety. A neighbor had a radio hidden under the straw in her cellar, and sometimes we went to hear Radio London, but most of the time the signal was so scrambled, you could not hear a thing.<\/p>\n AC: You were nine years old, you remember everything …<\/p>\n RL: Yes, I was nine and a half and my memories are perfectly sharp.<\/p>\n I remember in April ’45, when the North of Italy was finally liberated, the joy, almost a disbelief that it was really over … We heard that Mussolini had been captured and killed in Piazzale Loreto in Milan. I remember the radio bradcast …\u00a0 and then\u2026 an explosion of joy and freedom.\u00a0I went back to the valley once, soon after the end of the war. We had an aunt – my mother’s sister – who emigrated to Argentina, and my father\u2019s brother who had gone to Palestine after the war. They came back to Italy for a visit and we took them to see the valley where we had found refuge.<\/p>\n AC: How long where you in hiding in the valley?<\/p>\n RL: My parents from were there from October 1943 to May 1945, while I remained there until September 1945. After that I returned to Milan where I attended Hebrew school until my second year of high school.<\/p>\n AC: Did you ever return to the valley with your parents?<\/p>\n RL: I don\u2019t think my mother ever returned to the valley, when we went back after the war, she did not join us. It was my father, my maternal aunt, my paternal uncle and I. AC: Was going back an intense emotional experience each time?<\/p>\n RL: Yes, very, very intense.<\/p>\n AC: Did your childhood memories coincide with RL: Yes, because what is beautiful about this valley is that it has not changed much. It remained as it once was; in fact probably already back during the war, it had not changed since the turn of the century. The houses were built by the people who lived there, and they have more or less remained the same.<\/p>\n AC: During the war, how many people would you say lived in the valley?<\/p>\n RL: Oh, very few, maybe a hundred. That\u2019s more than now because today peple go there mostly for the summer or on weekends, while very few stay year around.\u00a0 The valley was a frazione <\/i>of a town further down called Campiglia Cervo. At the time the area was considered part of the province of Vercelli, while today it is part of the province of Biella.<\/p>\n AC: When did you see the Moscas again, the couple who had found you a hiding place?<\/p>\n RL: We saw them in Milan after the war rather often, for several years. The last time was with my mother, in 1982. By then he was a bit senile, but she was still lucid. They were very, very nice people.<\/p>\n AC: After the war your father returned to work for San Pellegrino?<\/p>\n RL: Yes, from ’45 to ’48. Then he started his own company, which was a failure. He eventually became CEO at Fila, the pencil factory, and we moved to Florence in 1951.<\/p>\n AC: Do you know what happened to your parents\u2019 Jewish friends in Milano?<\/p>\n RL: Amongs my parents friends many were Greek and Syrians Jews. They found some of them again after the war, I think they had escaped to Switzerland. As you know, Switzerland was the salvation for many, but even there one must make a distinction. A brother of my maternal grandmother made it there safely, but for example we had these friends, the Sonninos, who had a tragedy. They were headed to Switzerland, led by a group of the many smugglers who profited by transporting Jews. As they arrived at the border, the Swiss rejected the father of the family; he had to go back and was captured … so the Sonninos lost their head of the family\u2026 My mother\u2019s family instead fled to Argentina on a British ship that was torpedoed by the Nazis: they made it, but it was a “close call.” Escape was never simple.<\/p>\n AC: After the war, the impulse of most people was to roll up their sleeves and start over. I wonder if you had the curiosity and desire to try to understand and read up on what had happened to the Jews of Europe …<\/p>\n RL: The first thing was to turn the page, work hard and start over. We wanted to rebuild a sense of normalcy. But it was impossible not to ask oneself how that tragedy had been possible… I remember in Milan, during the summer of 1945, one night we heard that they were showing a movie at the Castello Sforzesco.\u00a0 I went without really knowing what to expect: it was a documentary about the concentration camps. It had a devastating effect on me … it was the first time I saw visual documents and of course they left a terrible and indelible impression. After that, for many years I have collected photos, documents, etc, intending to show them to my children one day… but I never had the courage to do it. Maybe I’ll show them to my grandchildren, I don\u2019t know. Of course, the progressive discovery of that horror is something that occurred over time. For example, only later I found out what had happened to my friend Alberto … and after this I learned about many other tragic stories of people I had lost touch with. Some things such as the deportation of Alberto, I only learned about in the past 4-5 years … Since then I have often found myself comparing my own life to what could and should have been his at the same age. Every time I had a moment of joy with my children or grandchildren, I wondered why he has not been able to live through such things too.<\/p>\n A friend of my sister, from Milan, with whom I have talked about this, told me that she had been in school with Alberto\u2019s sister and sent me a letter which this sister had written the summer before being deported.\u00a0 Reading it took me back to those times, making me aware of how much all that has remained a moment frozen in time. It is difficult, impossible to forget.<\/p>\n There are other memories that are related to those years, but that are part of a romantic experience of joy with the family. For example, I was in Italy last April and before returning to the U.S. I phoned Elena Mosca, the daughter of those who hid us. We were talking about various things and she said: ” It\u2019s a pity you did not come to see me, but do come back”. Then she spoke about the weather and said: “oh, we have had terrible weather, it rained a lot,” and it immediately came to me: “it must have swollen the creek, the Cervo”. To which she replied \u201cwait a minute, let me open the door so you can hear the creek on the phone\u201d … For me, to hear that sound, it was extremely moving. I used to fish with a local boy in that creek, so I said, “I remember fishing for trout, we jumped from one rock to another with a guy named Duilio\u201d. And she said: “Duilio, poor man, if you could see him now: he has a cane, he cannot walk well anymore, he is lame.” But I see before me Duilio, maybe sixteen years old … I have not seen him since. I have a romantic attachment for all of this, difficult to put into words. The Valmosca is a small valley, but it is beautiful. Nothing much, but so beautiful in its simplicity\u2026 I have some wonderful memories.<\/p>\n AC: How was the transition from evacuee back to \u201cnormal life\u201d?<\/p>\n RL: My young age, and also going to school \u2013 they were a big help. I remember my first pair of shoes: Tullia Zevi\u2019s brother who had gone to America and had become a soldier, brought them for me. My father knew the Zevis: Tullia’s father was the one who had found him the job at San Pellegrino. In any case, the son, brought me a pair of American shoes that I still remember very well: they were the ones in fashion in the ’40s, with those very pronounced edges, made in a mixture of leather and green and yellow canvas.<\/p>\n AC: What do you think the post-war period was like for your parents, how did they fit in?<\/p>\n RL: The post-war period was difficult for everyone, the country was destroyed and it was difficult to start again. Certainly for the Jews, even those who had been fortunate, there were particular wounds. For my father, finding work in Florence was a very important thing.<\/p>\n AC: How was moving to Florence for you, you still have a recognizable Florentine accent all these years later\u2026<\/p>\n RL: In Milan, between the Jewish school, one thing and another, I had many friends both Jews and non-Jews. When I arrived in Florence I found a much more closed environment.\u00a0 I enrolled at the Liceo Michelangelo (which I visited again for my 40th<\/sup>\u00a0 high school reunion, when we actualy went back to our class room).<\/p>\n The students were quite anti-Semitic and made fun of me because I came from the Jewish school in Milan. They did not like the way I pronounced Latin, with a Milanese accent … That third year of high school was quite bumpy for me. The city in general was a bit closed and Florentine Jews are rather small-minded, somehow provincial…<\/p>\n AC: Did your parents have an easier time?<\/p>\n RL: For my father, Florence was a salvation. He had found himself out of work, close to fifty years of age at a time when there was little work to be found anywhere. In Florence he was offered a great position as a Managing Director at Fila. He enjoyed his years in Florence very much.<\/p>\n AC: Did you discuss with your parents the period in the mountains?<\/p>\n RL: Not really, my mother was the most reluctant, and did not want to talk about it. They always saw the Moscas at least once year, but among ourselves we did not discuss that period.\u00a0 At one point the Moscas were awarded some type recognition by the Italians.<\/p>\n My mother always said that in her marriage, the time during which they had been closer and perhaps most united, was the in the valley. I certainly remember it as the period in my life where I have spent the most time with my father, because he was not working.<\/p>\n AC: What did the two of you do together, other than to looking for food?<\/p>\n RL: He was trying to teach me English and French. He made us pray a lot, which I remember as a negative and boring thing. At night before going to bed he used to try to get my sister and I to pray. It was very important to him.<\/p>\n AC: How did you reach the decision to move to the US?<\/p>\n RL: I would say, in phases. First I came for a postdoctoral fellowship in Baltimore, and there I sensed a different environment, a wider world. From an academic and professional the point of view, the horizon was much wider. Also socially I saw it was the possibility to develop meaningful friendships in a short time, both with Jews, but also with people of a different origins. This, despite the fact that Baltimore at that time was still a rather anti-Semitic city. Jews all lived in one neighborhood.<\/p>\n From Baltimore I came to New York, where I immediately felt much freer. Here you had many options:\u00a0 you could be a religious Jew, a secular one, an assimilated one , you could do what the hell you wanted. New York immediately gave me a feeling of freedom, sophistication and cosmopolitanism. AC: Over the years have you ever been tempted to go back to Italy? Have your feelings for that country changed?<\/p>\n RL: Once here, my wife and I no longer thought about returning to Italy, we brought up our children here, this country is theirs, and our future.\u00a0For many years I thought of Italy as Fascist Italy, a country that was allied with Hitler, an anti-Semitic country, etc., but Italy also has changed: I would say that it is more open towards the Jews and toward Shoah.<\/p>\n AC: In spite of everything, Italian Jews in general remained very attached to Italy.<\/p>\n RL: Yes, the Jews had had a very long presence in Italy, flourishing there at different times. I have a distant relative on my father\u2019s side, who was from Emilia, and he, like many other Jews, was a Senator of the Kingdom. He was an engineer, I do not know exactly what he built, maybe an aqueduct, in any case, his story, like that of other Jews who made it in government, created a\u00a0 a very\u00a0 strong sense of belonging and attachment to Italy. My father for example, felt very Italian: when I decided to move here, he asked me: “But why? Life is so good in Italy.” And this despite the fact that he himself had had to take his family into hiding … Of course it was much worse in France, Belgium,\u00a0 Holland and Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n AC: What is your mother’s maiden name and where was her family from?<\/p>\n RL: My mother was born in Ferrara, the family name was originally Coen Pirani, but the Coen had already been dropped when I was a child. My maternal grandmother and that branch of the family all came from Asti, in Piedmont. They were a family of bankers, called Artom. Many brothers and sisters, maybe nine or ten.<\/p>\n AC: Where did you meet your wife?<\/p>\n RL: In Florence at the University where we were both studying medicine. She is not Jewish. Once here, she specialized in psychiatry and practiced the profession for thirty years. Her other passion is painting, she painted for years, she also has a painting website: patrizialevi.com.<\/p>\n AC: What happened to her family during the war?<\/p>\n RL: It was hard for them too. Her father, an orthopedic surgeon, was forced to enlist in the Royal Army and was sent to Libya, where he died. Her mother was widowed very young, and the girl who become my wife was only three years old. The mother, a real Romagnola, was active with in the Resistance: she was also put to the wall to be shot a couple of times and escaped by a whisker. She eventually remarried an American when her daughter was already in her twenties.<\/p>\n AC: What weight do you attribute to religion in your Jewish identity?<\/p>\n RL: As a teenager I had a brief period when I was interested in religion, but it did not last long. People often believe, or try to believe, that keeping “Jewish” is in some way linked to religion, but then you realize that it is more related to the family, the tradition, to a desire to remember …<\/p>\n AC: Mixed marriages make it harder to pass on this sense of tradition to their children …<\/p>\n RL: My children feel and consider themselves Jewish, but they do so in very different ways. One is totally secular, the other is very religious. Lawrence had no interest in doing the Bar Mitzvah, while Alex did, and wanted to go and do it in Jerusalem. It was a surprising choice, but it was a very, very beautiful event. My mother was still alive and for her it was a great joy. That was the first time we travelled to Egypt: in those years it was interesting to go from Egypt to Israel.<\/p>\n AC: How did the procedure that that led to Yad Vashem\u2019s recognition of the Moscas begin?<\/p>\n RL: It was mostly thanks to\u00a0 my nephew, Claudio Della Seta. He is my sister’s son, born in ’58 and he works for Mediaset (though he is not a Berlusconi supporter\u2026). He had always heard these stories, from my sister and myself, and thought that something should be done for the Moscas. It took a long time to gather the necessary documents.<\/p>\n Getting Yad Vashem grant a recognition was not easy: we have tried to do something similar for those who had saved my maternal grandparents, the owners of the house in Tradate. When we departed for the mountains, my gradparents remained there. They had relatives, a niece of my grandfather\u2019s, from Parma, who was Catholic. She took them near Parma, in a clinic called Ramiola. The Nazis came looking for my grandparents in Tradate just 12 hours after their escape…<\/p>\n Ramiola was a rather peculiar clinic where Mussolini’s daughter Edda Ciano was “hospitalized”. One day they learned that the Germans were coming to take Edda Ciano, but by the time they got there, the clinic was empty, everyone had escaped, including my grandparents. The same relatives brought them into the Parma Apennines. Yad Vashem did not grant them recognition because there were not enough documents and also because they had not actually taken in my grandparents as the Moscas had done with us, so it was more difficult to establish exactly the risk they had taken.<\/p>\n AC: The ceremony and the awarding of the medal to the Moscas, did it occurr in the valley?<\/p>\n RL: Yes, in Valmosca, and unfortunately I was not able to attend. Our first granddaughter had her Bat Mitzvah on the 28th and the ceremony was on the 31st … I would have loved to go.<\/p>\n Truth be told, going back to the valley is a very personal experience for me, I’ve always preferred to go alone, to relive it. Maybe one day I’ll go with Lawrence or maybe with Alex … but untill now, I have never wanted to do that.<\/p>\n AC: Have you kept in touch with the friends of your youth in Italy?<\/p>\n RL: With a few. I have some colleagues, one in particular, a very good man. Also we have remained very close to a cousin of my wife\u2019s, Gabriele Turi, who is a history\u00a0 professor in Florence. Among other things, he has written about Italian Jews under Fascism. When we go to Florence we always see him.<\/p>\n AC: With such a distance in time and geography, has you your relationship with Italy changed in recent years?<\/p>\n RL: I love Italy, I love the people there. But I consider it more a country for the holidays than one where I could imagine going back to live in. We kept my parents’ house in Via dei Della Robbia in Florence until a few months ago. We did not use it enough to justify holding on to it. I was saddened because that was the first house that my parents owned, before that they had always rented.\u00a0 The apartment was on the fourth floor: from the window you could see the dome of the Synagogue. At one time you could also see the Duomo\u2019s dome, but one of those huge pine trees eventually grew and covered the view.\u00a0I have deeply ambiguous feelings regarding Florence.<\/p>\n AC: Have professional opportunities ever come up for you in Italy?<\/p>\n RL: A few years ago I was offered a position as Professore di chiara fama<\/i> at the University. I considered it, but the conditions were impossible for me. They wanted me to give up my position here at Cornell Medical College and I was not ready to do so.\u00a0 I am seventy-eight years old and I continue to work full-time here, while in Italy, at seventy they force you to retire\u2026 And above all I was offered a professorship paid by the government, without laboratory and without any of the tools needed to do research.<\/p>\n AC: Has Israel ever attracted you?<\/p>\n RL: I thought about it while I was finishing college in Florence and I considered going there even after my first two years in America, for the postdoctoral fellowship, but it did not happen and maybe it’s better this way. I’ve been there several times, it is a difficult country, Israelis are tough people.<\/p>\n AC: How would you take stock of your life in New York ?<\/p>\n RL: I still find it a stimulating city, very lively and always different. The cultural offerings are impressive; the problem is that you can use them only in part … you end up with too much work! I am fortunate to love my job, the best thing is that it keeps me in constant contact with young people.<\/p>\n AC: Do you do more research or teaching?<\/p>\n RL: I do both, perhaps less teaching: I teach a course for med students and one for graduate students. My field is Pharmacology; the teaching of medicine has changed a lot. The curriculum is now based on the organs: the heart, lungs, kidneys … as if the body were all broken into parts. I always have young people in the lab, I also had some very bright Italians, once they have finished school here, they never know whether to stay or go back to Italy …<\/p>\n AC: And what about your children?<\/p>\n RL: I am very lucky, they are good people, I could not ask for more! Alex is an architect, but he is interested in everything. He was always a Renaissance man. Lawrence instead is attracted more by literary matters, he is also very good. Then there are the grandchildren, who are a wonder.<\/p>\n AC: Is there anything you want to add regarding the impact of the period in the valley on your later your life?<\/p>\n RL: The time spent in valley was a very, very important part of my life, an essential one.\u00a0 I was there for only two years, at a young age …<\/p>\n I gradually realized its importance much later. I do not think we would have survived another winter up there, between\u00a0 the hunger, the cold\u00a0 and the fear…. Meeting with Primo Levi<\/i><\/p>\n I have been a reader and admirer of Primo Levi for years, without ever having met him in person. In 1986 I was going to Torino and wrote to him asking if I could pay him a visit. He answered politely saying he did not have time, but to call him once I got to Torino.\u00a0 When I did, he immediately gave my a specific time and day when I could visit him at\u00a0 his house in\u00a0 Corso Re Umberto 75.<\/p>\n I liked him a lot as a person, he reminded me of my relatives from Piedmont on my grandmother\u2019s side. The Piedmontese can be very nice even though they are often very troubled. Primo Levi at that stage was clearly very troubled, we talked at length about depression: ” I am clinically depressed” he said. He told me that sometimes he slipped a sheet of paper into the typewriter and simply stared at the white paper all morning.\u00a0 I had just begun to also use the computer, but this block did not depend on the medium. He also talked about the companion who had saved him in Auschwitz, and later became an alchoholic, practically committing suicide. I remember when he came to open the door for me, the first thing I said, not knowing how to break the ice, was how nmuch I liked that staricase. “They ruined it with the elevator” he replied.<\/p>\n Primo Levi was not religious at all: we talked about that and he said that religion was one thing he felt he was better off without…<\/p>\n He was a man of great sensitivity, what I had found in his books was apparent in the person.\u00a0 In reading the Periodic Table I came across amazing details. I remember the scene in which he describes someone painting the kitchen, and a girl looking at him. The man paints a circle on the ground to mark the area where the girl should not step out of.\u00a0 It does not matter whether things like these are real or imagined, they have such an evocative power … For me the meeting was very interesting. He had just seen Philip Roth, I noticed on his desk some of Philip Roth’s novels translated into Italian, so we began talking about him.\u00a0 He told me that Roth had recently visited him. Philip Roth is not one of my favorite writers, though I admired Patrimony<\/i>, and The Plot Against America<\/i>; Primo Levi however liked his work.<\/p>\n Later I read the great interview with Levi that Roth had published in The New York Review of Books …<\/p>\n When Primo Levi died, for many months I could not pick up anything he had written. It took me a long time to go back. I have read almost everything except his last works.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cCi \u00e8 andata bene\u201d – \u00a0Conversazione con Roberto Levi.<\/p>\n Alessandro Cassin<\/p>\n \u201cPiet\u00e0 e brutalit\u00e0 possono coesistere, nello stesso individuo e nello stesso momento, contro ogni logica; e del resto, la piet\u00e0 stessa sfugge alla logica.\u201d\u00a0<\/i>Primo Levi<\/i><\/p>\n Dopo l\u20198 settembre 1943 la gi\u00e0 difficile situazione degli ebrei nell\u2019Italia centro settentrionale si fece drammatica. I nazisti e i repubblichini organizzano retate basandosi sulle liste fornite dalle questure: una vera caccia all\u2019ebreo.<\/p>\n Eppure, accanto a delatori e collaboratori dei fascisti, ci furono individui che rischiando la propria vita, non esitarono a nascondere loro concittadini di religione ebraica. La famiglia di Guido Levi, in fuga da Milano, trov\u00f2 rifugio\u00a0 in Valmosca, piccola valle nelle alpi biellesi, a 867 metri sul livello del mare,\u00a0 a circa 90 Km a nord est di Torino e una distanza analoga in direzione nord ovest da Milano.\u00a0 I Levi arrivarono in Valmosca grazie all\u2019invito di Luigi Lino Mosca, collega di Guido Levi alla San Pellegrino, originario della valle. I Levi rimasero nascosti in valle dal settembre \u201843 alla primavera 1945.\u00a0 La famiglia Mosca li nascose in una casa locale, ma in una piccola frazione di circa cento abitanti, non sarebbe stato possibile nascondere una famiglia senza\u00a0 il tacito accordo dell\u2019intera popolazione.\u00a0 Guido Levi condusse con se la moglie Laura Pirani Levi, la madre Sarah Bettman Levi, e i due figli Graziella e Roberto. Dopo aver sopravvissuto la guerra e le persecuzioni, la famiglia Levi \u00e8 rimasta in contatto con i Mosca, visitandoli regolarmente sia a Milano che tornando a trovarli nella valle.<\/p>\n Nel 2012, dopo una lunga ricerca di documenti\u00a0 iniziata da Claudio Della Seta, figlio di Graziella Levi, Yad Vashem ha riconosciuto\u00a0 Luigi e Maria Mosca \u201cGiusti tra le Nazioni\u201d, consegnando la medaglia alla figlia Elena Mosca Goretta, in una cerimonia tenutasi in Valmosca alla presenza di discendenti delle due famiglie.<\/p>\n La storia della permanenza dei Levi in Valmosca \u00e8 qui evocata dal pi\u00f9 piccolo dei figli di Guido Levi, Roberto che all\u2019epoca aveva poco pi\u00f9 di nove anni e che oggi \u00e8 un illustre professore di Farmacologia cardiovascolare presso il Weill Cornell Medical College a New York.<\/p>\n Alesandro Cassin: Prima della guerra vivevate a Milano, quando siete scappati?<\/p>\n Roberto Levi: Si and\u00f2 via da Milano alla fine del \u201843 quando iniziarono i bombardamenti aerei, andammo a Tradate, a una quarantina di chilometri da Milano, dove\u00a0 i nonni avevano una villa. Poi alla fine del 43 siamo scappati in montagna, in Valmosca nel Biellese.<\/p>\n AC: Sai cosa successe ai tuoi amici ebrei?<\/p>\n RL: Di molti ho perso le tracce. Sapevo di un mio caro amico Alberto di origini greche, il quale and\u00f2\u00a0 con la famiglia a Seregno, in Brianza. Ci siamo scritti due o tre letterine, avevamo 9anni\/ nove anni e mezzo e poi non ho mai pi\u00f9 saputo niente. Un giorno andando in Israele mi pare nel 1954, ho saputo da un loro cugino greco che si era salvato,\u00a0 che erano stati tutti deportati a Auschwitz. Poi recentemente sul Libro della Memoria ho letto la storia del suo arresto e deportazione: presi a Seregno, portati a San Vittore per una settimana o due, poi messi sui treni e uccisi\u00a0 a Auschwitz, all\u2019arrivo. Chiaramente c\u2019era stato un delatore locale che li ha venduti.<\/p>\n AC: Data la disparit\u00e0 dei comportamenti degli italiani, \u00e8 problematico\u00a0 attribuire la spinta di certe persone a aiutare gli ebrei, la loro generosit\u00e0,\u00a0 alla loro italianit\u00e0\u2026<\/p>\n RL Assolutamente. Non c\u2019entra essere italiani si trattava di gesti individuali e anche, spesso, del paese. Ad esempio i piemontesi sono gente particolare, e i valligiani praticamente una categoria a se.\u00a0 La nostra era una valle piccola, isolata e molto chiusa\u2026 Praticamente era una societ\u00e0 femminile, gli uomini andavano all\u2019estero, a lavorare (e con la guerra sono rimasti bloccati) Erano le donne che mandavano avanti tutto anche i lavori fisicamente pi\u00f9 duri. Erano contadine, le vedevo sempre\u00a0 con delle gerle fatte di rami d\u2019albero, dolorosissime da trasportare con delle cinghie di legno: ci portavano di tutto dal fieno alla legna \u2026 Era gente forte che badava soprattutto a se stessa. Non si interessavano troppo agli altri, senza dubbio gli era chiaro che eravamo dei rifugiati.<\/p>\n AC: Quanti dei tuoi familiari erano con te nella Valle?<\/p>\n RL: Eravamo in cinque: io i miei genitori, mia sorella e la madre di mio padre. Siamo arrivati nell\u2019ottobre 1943 e solo un mese dopo, a novembre c\u2019\u00e8 stato un raid delle S.S. Erano venuti su nella valle\u00a0 a cercare un anarchico, un antifascista,\u00a0 dicevano che fosse stata una maestra di scuola che aveva soffiato\u2026 Lo trovarono in una cantina, e lo ammazzarono. Noi chiaramente credevamo che fossero venuti a prendere noi, ce li siamo visti arrivare su per la scala di casa.<\/p>\n AC: L\u2019anarchico era nascosto nella casa dove vivevate voi?<\/p>\n RL: No, ma in una casa molto vicina. Abbiamo sentito degli spari, probabilmente bombe a mano\u2026 Poi queste donne\u2026 la moglie e la sorella che son venute a chiedere a mio padre di andarle a aiutare. Avevamo appena avuto i tedeschi in casa\u00a0 -una paura cane- mia madre convinta che erano venuti a prender noi. Mi ricordo che gli disse in italiano, \u201canche i bambini?\u201d. Dopo che i tedeschi erano andati via mio padre and\u00f2 a aiutare le donne.<\/p>\n AC: Anche tuo padre era medico?<\/p>\n RL: No, mio padre non aveva fatto l\u2019universit\u00e0, era ragioniere. Lavorava alla San Pellegrino a Milano, dove lavorava anche questo Lino Mosca. Per via dei bombardamenti la fabbrica si era spostata a San Pellegrino in Val Brembana.<\/p>\n AC: E\u2019 stato Lino Mosca a consigliare a tuo padre di rifugiarsi in Valmosca?<\/p>\n RL: Esatto. A quell\u2019epoca non si sapeva che pesci prendere: un\u2019idea era di andare in Svizzera attraverso il lago Maggiore, un\u2019altra era addirittura -te lo immagini te-\u00a0 salire sul Cervino attraversare a piedi il Plateau Rosa per andare in Svizzera\u2026 c\u2019\u00e8 anche chi l\u2019ha fatto. Ma questo Lino disse: \u201cSai \u00e8 un paese tranquillo, una valle chiusa, ti posso trovare io una casa dove vi possono ospitare\u201d e lo fece. Lui era originario della Valmosca e aveva una moglie milanese e altri parenti che erano sfollati li. Lino faceva la spola tra Milano e la valle: ci portava soldi, ci portava quello che poteva.<\/p>\n AC: Sapeva che eravate ebrei?<\/p>\n RL: Oh certo, certo. Dopo la prima visita dei tedeschi, i miei lo dissero a una vicina di casa, una tale Maurina, la quale fu bravissima. Ora \u00e8 morta anche lei ma l\u2019ho rivista pi\u00f9 volte negli anni.<\/p>\n AC: Com\u2019\u00e8 stato il viaggio per arrivare in montagna?<\/p>\n RL: Da Tradate, in provincia di Varese, abbiamo preso per lo meno quattro o cinque treni: da Tradate a Saronno, da Saronno a Novara, poi a Biella per non dare nell\u2019occhio. Mia sorella mi ricorda sempre che avevamo un pezzo di formaggio che puzzava da morire e che lasciava una scia\u2026e che certo quello non era il modo per passare inosservati! Sul treno non sedevamo vicini, ma separati in diversi scompartimenti attigui. Qualcuno si \u00e8 messo a parlare con me, sembrava voler sapere molte cose a cui io cercavo di non rispondere,( avevo gi\u00e0 un\u2019 idea precisa di cosa succedeva). I miei genitori mi guardavano molto preoccupati, lo capivo dalle loro facce: avevano paura che svelassi qualcosa.\u00a0 Erano perfettamente al\u00a0 corrente del fatto che ci fossero pericoli, delatori ecc.<\/p>\n AC: Oltre alla comprensibile paura, credi che i tuoi si sentissero traditi dagli italiani, dal loro popolo?<\/p>\n RL: Lo shock \u00e8 arrivato con le leggi raziali nel \u201938. Io avevo solo 4 anni cos\u00ec non sono mai andato a una scuola pubblica fino a dopo, ma mia sorella fu costretta a lasciare e andare alla scuola ebraica\u2026 Nel 1943, i miei genitori avevano capito che c\u2019erano persone di cui fidarsi e altre no. Non penso avessero un sentimento di tradimento generale da parte della popolazione. Si sentivano, ci sentivamo tutti italiani.\u00a0 Ma anche le leggi razziali hanno colpito in maniera diversa di caso in caso, c\u2019era per esempio la storia della \u201cdiscriminazione\u201d una parola che descrive esattamente il contrario di quello che significava. Mio nonno non so come, era riuscito a essere \u201cdiscriminato\u201d forse per la prima guerra mondiale, ma non \u00e8 che lui l\u2019avesse fatta\u2026 Mio zio (il fratello di mio padre) che come mio padre era sionista, non aspett\u00f2 molto e part\u00ec per la Palestina. Mio padre invece era pi\u00f9 attaccato all\u2019Italia aveva una visione pi\u00f9 nazionale che internazionale.<\/p>\n AC: Cosa ricordi delle tue giornate durante il periodo in Valmosca e come hai fatto a non rimanere indietro con gli studi?<\/p>\n RL: C\u2019erano due maestrine, rifugiate anche loro, che mi hanno insegnato un po\u2019di italiano e altre materie, ma non la matematica, in maniera che nel 1945 feci l\u2019esame di passaggio dalla prima alla seconda media. Feci un mese di scuola pubblica a Biella e poi diedi l\u2019esame che miracolosamente passai. Io ero convintissimo di passare, ero molto sicuro di me, mentre le maestre erano tutt\u2019altro che convinte\u2026 in ogni caso \u00e8 andata bene. Per il resto del tempo, andavo con mio padre a cercar da mangiare, nella valle ci muovevamo del tutto liberamente. Andavamo in giro in montagna a raccogliere i mirtilli, patate, mele, e castagne, c\u2019erano molte castagne.<\/p>\n AC: E la matematica?<\/p>\n RL: La matematica me la insegnava Emilio Jona, che ha poi scritto\u00a0 tra le altre cose un piccolo libro molto interessante che si chiama Inverni Alti. La famiglia Jona di Biella era l\u2019altra famiglia di ebrei nascosta nella valle. Per molto tempo non sapevamo noi di loro ne loro di noi, poi un giorno, le persone che ci nascondevano organizzarono un incontro segreto tra mio padre\u00a0 e il padre di Emilio in un posto isolato in alta montagna, dove si parlarono. Poi, non so esattamente come fu, ma Emilio che non era certo un matematico ma era pi\u00f9 grande ( forse 16 anni) inizi\u00f2 a darmi un po\u2019 di lezioni di matematica.<\/p>\n Emilio \u00e8 diventato avvocato, l\u2019ho rivisto una volta sola dopo la guerra, e gli ho chiesto se si ricordava. Stranamente lui non si ricorda affatto di avermi insegnato, ma io benissimo. Poi, lo zio di Emilio, il fratello del padre, spos\u00f2 la donna che li aveva salvati. Gli Jona avevano un bellissima casa a Biella attigua a una Sinagoga, di cui Emilio ha continuato a occuparsi, praticamente la mantiene, anche se lui perlopi\u00f9 vive a Torino.<\/p>\n AC: Pensi che gli Jona hanno passato pi\u00f9 o meno lo stesso periodo vostro in valle?<\/p>\n RL: Sono arrivati decisamente dopo, credo nel 44-45. Mi viene in mente un particolare buffo. Mio padre aveva bisogno di un paio di pantaloni e il padre di Emilio aveva varie conoscenze -in quella zona cerano varie tessiture- disse \u201cci penso io\u201d e riusc\u00ec a farsi dare un pezzo di stoffa da cui mio padre finalmente si fece fare un paio di pantaloni.<\/p>\n AC: Avete sofferto la fame?<\/p>\n RL: Si, in alcuni momenti c\u2019era proprio la fame. Fame e freddo perch\u00e9 non c\u2019era riscaldamento. Il pase non era molto in alto, sar\u00e0 stato a 800-900 metri, ma era una valle piuttosto buia, chiusa e molto umida. Avevamo due stufe ma non bastavano. Mia nonna in particolare soffriva il freddo\u00a0 Avr\u00e0 avuto in quell\u2019epoca poco pi\u00f9 di sessant\u2019anni,\u00a0 parlava milanese, la sua tipica frase lass\u00f9 era \u201c mi sun chi nuda e cruda\u201d \u00a0(sono qui nuda e cruda). Non pensava assolutamente alle altre prospettive\u2026<\/p>\n AC: Giocavi con altri bambini?<\/p>\n RL: Si, si! Una nostra vicina di casa, aveva due figli, uno pi\u00f9 o meno della mia et\u00e0, e uno pi\u00f9 giovane: Piero e Renzo. Con Piero sono rimasto in contatto, ci siamo anche visti un paio di volte.<\/p>\n Io avevo anche imparato un po\u2019 del dialetto locale, lo chiamano \u201cval\u00f9t\u201d. Qualcosa mi \u00e8 rimasto, a volte con mia sorella tiriamo fuori qualche parola.<\/p>\n AC: Che differenza di et\u00e0 c\u2019\u00e8 tra te e tua sorella?<\/p>\n RL: Cinque anni, lei \u00e8 la maggiore.<\/p>\n AC: Credi che le vostre esperienze di quel periodo siano state abbastanza parallele?<\/p>\n RL: Direi di si, anche se certe cose erano\u00a0 ovviamente un po\u2019 diverse. Lei aveva pi\u00f9 amici. Per esempio, Elena, la figlia dei Mosca, quella che ha ricevuto la medaglia, aveva l\u2019et\u00e0 di mia sorella. Dopo la guerra si son ritrovate e hanno preso un diploma di ragioneria insieme, sono state compagne per 4-5 anni.<\/p>\n AC: Durante il vostro periodo in Valmosca, credi che i tuoi genitori fossero coscienti delle deportazioni e di cosa stava succedendo agli ebrei, avevano notizie?<\/p>\n RL: Allora si diceva \u201cli hanno portati in Polonia\u201d ma non credo che nessuno sapesse davvero cosa voleva dire questa frase. Mi ricordo all\u2019inizio di dicembre 1943 questo titolone sul Corriere della Sera che diceva che gli ebrei dovevano costituirsi e sarebbero stati portati via ecc. Leggendo eravamo molto preoccupati, perch\u00e9 temevamo che\u00a0 se la gente della valle lo leggeva chiss\u00e0 cosa poteva succedere. Veramente non si sapeva cosa stava succedendo nel resto d\u2019Europa.<\/p>\n AC: Pensi che ai valligiani fosse chiaro chi fossero gli ebrei; la parola aveva un vero significato per loro?<\/p>\n RL: Beh, erano piuttosto religiosi, molto cattolici. Anche noi andavamo in chiesa ad eccezione di mio padre che non ci \u00e8 mai andato. Io, mia madre e mia sorella andavamo, per\u00f2 io non ho mai servito messa come gli altri bambini, sicch\u00e8 pi\u00f9 o meno sapevano, o si immaginavano\u2026<\/p>\n Di uomini ce n\u2019erano pochi. C\u2019era l\u2019anarchico che fu ucciso dai tedeschi il quale non faceva mistero di essere antifascista, mangiapreti eccetera. Ce n\u2019era qualcuno ma davvero pochi.<\/p>\n AC: oltre a voi c\u2019erano altri sfollati o persone nascoste?<\/p>\n RL: Hai presente il gioielliere Buccellati?\u00a0 Ecco la famiglia Buccellati aveva una casa in un paesino l\u00ec vicino. Avevano una barcata di figli non so se sei o sette, alcuni dei quali furono presi in un rastrellamento vicino a Biella, quando rastrellavano gli uomini per portarli a lavorare in Germania. Poi riuscirono a liberarli, probabilmente pagando forti cifre sottobanco. Mio padre la domenica qualche volta giocava a carte con il Buccelati e altra gente del posto. Mio padre si lamentava \u201cBuccellati pu\u00f2 permettersi di giocare con i soldi\u201d ovviamente noi non avevamo niente in pi\u00f9.<\/p>\n AC: Pensi che i tuoi genitori si ponessero il problema di cosa fare dopo la guerra o si preoccupavano soprattutto di sopravvivere?<\/p>\n RL: Pi\u00f9 che altro si trattava di sopravvivere, per\u00f2 pensavano\u00a0 chiaramente anche di tornare a Milano, mio padre di tornare al suo lavoro. Il padrone della San Pellegrino era un tipo fosco, molto impelagato con il fascismo e io ho sempre avuto l\u2019impressione che cercasse di crearsi degli alibi che potessero servirgli dopo\u2026Non so se questa era una mia supposizione, ma credo che abbia pensato che far del bene a degli ebrei gli sarebbe servito nel dopo guerra.<\/p>\n AC: Oltre all\u2019episodio dell\u2019omicidio dell\u2019anarchico e del trovarvi i nazisti sulle scale di casa, la vita scorreva con una certa tranquillit\u00e0 o era costellata da momenti di panico?<\/p>\n RL: Abbiamo avuto spesso una paura tremenda. L\u2019ultimo inverno, l\u2019inverno del 1944-45 \u00e8 stato il pi\u00f9 duro, con la guerra che si era fermata alla linea gotica. I fascisti e i nazisti parlavano di armi \u201cspeciali\u201d si pensava alla bomba atomica\u2026 si viveva nell\u2019angoscia. Poi c\u2019era la Repubblica di Sal\u00f2 che si era rinvigorita. Nella valle abbiamo avuto un\u2019occupazione da parte dei \u201crepubblichini\u201d per un mese e mezzo: pi\u00f9 o meno gennaio e febbraio 45. Durante quel periodo siamo rimasti letteralmente chiusi in casa. Una volta andai con mia madre a cercare qualcosa da mangiare e ci fermarono a un posto di blocco. I documenti falsi di mia madre erano poco buoni, (mentre mio padre aveva una carta d\u2019identit\u00e0 falsa ma credibile) ci and\u00f2 bene, chi ci ferm\u00f2 non aveva grande esperienza di documenti. Mia madre si spavent\u00f2 moltissimo e da quel momento non usc\u00ec pi\u00f9 di casa fino a che i soldati repubblichini lasciarono la valle. Erano venuti a cercare i partigiani ma se ci avessero identificati come ebrei, per noi sarebbe stata finita. La cosa pi\u00f9 impressionante era che a parte gli ufficiali che erano uomini, direi da trent\u2019anni in su, i soldati erano giovanissimi, ragazzi di 14-16 anni.<\/p>\n AC: Ma i partigiani c\u2019erano davvero?<\/p>\n RL: Andavano e venivano. In quel periodo c\u2019erano partigiani della Brigata Moscatelli, che erano comunisti. Mio padre aveva paura perch\u00e9 si sentivano storie di giovani che facevano la spola tra i repubblichini e i partigiani e c\u2019era sempre il pericolo che venissero a sapere che c\u2019erano degli ebrei nascosti. Sai non avevamo una radio non avevamo nulla, quindi anche l\u2019assenza di notizie sicure creava maggiore ansia. Una vicina di casa aveva una radio che teneva in cantina sotto la paglia, e ogni tanto si andava a sentire Radio Londra, ma la maggior parte del tempo il segnale era talmente disturbato che non si riusciva a sentire niente.<\/p>\n AC: Tu avevi nove anni, quindi ricordi tutto bene\u2026<\/p>\n RL: Si nove anni e mezzo e i ricordi sono perfettamente nitidi.<\/p>\n Quando nell\u2019aprile del \u201945 il Nord D\u2019Italia fu finalmente liberato, ricordo la gioia, quasi l\u2019incredulit\u00e0 che fosse davvero finita\u2026 Sentimmo che avevano preso Mussolini e l\u2019avevano ucciso a Piazzale Loreto, a Milano, mi ricordo la radiocronaca\u2026 poi un\u2019esplosione di gioia, e di libert\u00e0.<\/p>\n Poi, ci sono tornato una volta subito dopo la guerra. Noi avevamo una zia -sorella di mia madre- che \u00e8 emigrata in Argentina, e il fratello di mio padre nel 1937 era andato in Palestina, dopo la guerra vennero a trovarci e li portammo a vedere la valle dove ci eravamo rifugiati.<\/p>\n AC: Quanto siete rimasti in totale nascosti nella valle?<\/p>\n RL: I miei genitori da ottobre 1943, al maggio del 1945; io ci rimasi fino a settembre 1945. Poi tornai a Milano e andai alla scuola ebraica, dove son rimasto fino alla seconda liceo.<\/p>\n AC: Sei tornato nella valle con i tuoi genitori?<\/p>\n RL: Mia madre non credo sia mai pi\u00f9 tornata in valle, la volta che siamo tornati dopo la guerra lei non c\u2019era. Eravamo io, mio padre la sorella di mia madre e il fratello di mio padre. Per molti anni avevo questo sogno di tornare, lo sognavo proprio di notte! Sognavo di tornare a vedere la valle, vedere com\u2019era\u2026 Ci sono poi tornato davvero una seconda volta nel 1981, l\u2019anno dopo che era morto mio padre, poi ci son tornato nell\u201982, poi sono andato ancora una volta con mia sorella nel \u201993, a 50 anni da quando ci eravamo rifugiati l\u00ec.<\/p>\n AC: Sono state tutte esperienze emotivamente forti?<\/p>\n RL: Si, molto, molto forti.<\/p>\n AC: E i tuoi ricordi di bambino, combaciavano con\u00a0quello che hai poi trovato?<\/p>\n RL: Si, perch\u00e9 quello che c\u2019\u00e8 di bello in quella valle l\u00ec, \u00e8 che non \u00e8 cambiata molto. E\u2019 rimasta com\u2019era, anzi probabilmente gi\u00e0 allora era rimasta cos\u00ec com\u2019era all\u2019inizio del secolo. Le case pi\u00f9 o meno son rimaste le stesse, costruite dalla gente che ci abitava.<\/p>\n AC: durante la guerra, hai idea di quanti abitanti poteva avere?<\/p>\n RL: Oh, pochissimi. Pi\u00f9 di ora perch\u00e9\u00a0 oggi ci vanno solo per il weekend o per l\u2019estate, ma allora ci vivevano forse un centinaio di persone.<\/p>\n Questa era una frazione di un comune pi\u00f9 in basso che si chiamava Campiglia Cervo, all\u2019epoca tutta la zona era provincia di Vercelli, mentre oggi \u00e8 provincia di Biella.<\/p>\n AC: E i Mosca quando li avete rivisti?<\/p>\n RL: Dopo la guerra li abbiamo visti a Milano piuttosto spesso, per diversi anni. L\u2019ultima volta li abbiamo visti con mia madre nel 1982. Lui era gi\u00e0 un po\u2019 senile, lei era ancora lucida. Erano gente molto simpatica.<\/p>\n AC: Tuo padre, dopo la guerra \u00e8 tornato a lavorare alla San Pellegrino?<\/p>\n RL: S\u00ec dal \u201845 al \u201948. Poi si mise in proprio, e quello fu un fallimento. Poi divenne amministratore delegato alla Fila, la fabbrica di matite, a Firenze e cos\u00ec ci trasferimmo nel 1951.<\/p>\n AC: E degli amici ebrei dei tuoi a Milano cosa ne \u00e8 stato?<\/p>\n RL: Tra gli amici dei miei a Milano c\u2019erano molti ebrei greci e siriani. Ne ritrovarono diversi dopo la guerra credo fossero scappati in Svizzera. Come sai la Svizzera fu la salvezza per molti, ma anche l\u00ec bisogna distinguere. A un fratello di mia nonna materna and\u00f2 bene ma per esempio, avevamo degli amici, i Sonnino che ebbero una tragedia. Erano diretti in Svizzera, guidati da quei clandestini che commerciavano nel trasporto degli ebrei in fuga, e arrivati al confine non accettarono il padre che dovette tornare indietro e fu preso\u2026 cos\u00ec persero il padre. La famiglia di mia madre invece \u00e8 scappata in Argentina su una nave inglese che fu silurata dai nazisti durante il tragitto, ce la fecero ma fu una \u201cclose call\u201d. Scappare non era mai semplice.<\/p>\n AC: Dopo la guerra, immagino che l\u2019impulso di tutti era quello di rimboccarsi le maniche e ricominciare. Mi domando se avevi anche la curiosit\u00e0 e lo spazio mentale per cercare di capire, leggere cosa era successo agli ebrei in Europa\u2026<\/p>\n RL: La prima cosa era voltare pagina darsi da fare per ricominciare, ricostruire un senso di normalit\u00e0.\u00a0 Ma era impossibile non porsi domande su come era stato possibile\u2026 Ricordo l\u2019estate del 45 , a Milano una sera si seppe che davano un film al Castello Sforzesco\u00a0 e si and\u00f2 senza sapere bene cosa aspettarsi: era un documentario sui campi di concentramento. Un effetto devastante\u2026 era la prima volta che vedevo documenti visivi, naturalmente mi fece un\u2019impressione terribile e indelebile. Dopo, per molti anni ho raccolto foto, documenti eccetera, da far vedere un giorno ai miei figli\u2026 ma non ne ho mai avuto il coraggio. Forse lo far\u00f2 con i nipoti, non so. Naturalmente la scoperta progressiva di quell\u2019orrore \u00e8 una cosa che ho vissuto dopo. Solo dopo, per esempio ho scoperto cosa era successo al mio amico Alberto \u2026 e come la sua ho scoperto storie tragiche di tante persone di cui non sapevo pi\u00f9 niente. Alcune cose come la deportazione di Alberto le ho sapute solo negli ultimi 4-5 anni\u2026 Da allora mi sono trovato spesso a paragonare la mia vita a quella che avrebbe potuto e dovuto essere la sua alla stessa et\u00e0. Ogni volta che avevo un momento di gioia con i figli o con i nipoti, mi sono chiesto perch\u00e9 non abbia potuto vivere cose simili anche lui.<\/p>\n Un\u2019amica di mia sorella, di Milano, con cui ho parlato di questo, mi ha detto che lei era compagna delle sorelle di Alberto e mi ha mandato una lettera, che questa sorella le aveva scritto proprio l\u2019estate prima di essere deportata, una storia che mi ha riportato indietro, facendomi accorgere di quanto tutto quello \u00e8 un momento bloccato nel tempo. E\u2019 difficile, impossibile, dimenticare. Ci sono altre cose che sono un po\u2019 legate alle esperienze di quegli anni, ma che fanno parte di un\u2019esperienza romantica, di gioia con la famiglia. Per esempio, ero in Italia lo scorso aprile e prima di rientrare negli Stati Uniti ho telefonato a Elena Mosca la figlia di quelli che ci hanno nascosti. Si parlava di varie cose, mi ha detto: \u201cpeccato che non sei venuto a trovarmi ma ritorna\u201d poi si parlava del tempo, mi ha detto:\u00a0 \u201cah c\u2019\u00e8 stato un tempo terribile ha piovuto tanto\u201d, e mi \u00e8 subito venuto in mente \u201c si sar\u00e0 gonfiato il torrente, il torrente Cervo\u201d. Lei mi dice si aspetta un attimo, apro la porta cos\u00ec lo senti al telefono\u2026 Per me sentire quel suono \u00e8 stato commoventissimo. Io in quel torrente ci andavo a pescare con un ragazzo del luogo cos\u00ec gli dissi \u201cmi ricordo che andavo a pescare le trote, si saltava da un sasso all\u2019altro con un ragazzo che si chiamava Duilio. E lei mi dice\u201dDuilio poveretto se tu lo vedessi ora, ha il bastone, cammina male \u00e8 zoppo\u201d. Ma io Duilio me lo vedo davanti, avr\u00e0 avuto sedici anni \u2026e non l\u2019ho pi\u00f9 visto da allora.\u00a0 Verso tutto questo, ho un attaccamento romantico difficile da mettere in parole. La Valmosca \u00e8 una valle piccola, ma \u00e8 proprio bella. Non c\u2019\u00e8 niente, ma nella sua semplicit\u00e0 \u00e8 stupenda, ho dei ricordi bellissimi.<\/p>\n AC: Da sfollato a persona normale, come \u00e8 stata la transizione?<\/p>\n RL: L\u2019et\u00e0 e lo studio mi hanno aiutato. Mi ricordo il mio primo paio di scarpe, me lo port\u00f2 il fratello di Tullia Zevi, che stava in America e nel frattempo era diventato un soldato. Mio padre li conosceva perch\u00e9 il padre di Tullia era quello che aveva gli aveva trovato il posto alla San Pellegrino. In ogni caso, il figlio, mi port\u00f2 questo paio di scarpe americane che ricordo ancora benissimo: erano come si usavano negli anni \u201940, con dei bordi molto pronunciati, un misto di tela e cuoio verde e giallo.<\/p>\n AC: Come credi che i tuoi genitori abbiano vissuto l\u2019immediato dopo guerra; in che modo si sono reinseriti?<\/p>\n RL: Il dopoguerra era difficile per tutti il paese era distrutto e si faticava a ricominciare. Certamente per gli ebrei, anche per quelli a cui era andata bene, c\u2019erano ferite particolari. Il lavoro a Firenze per mio padre \u00e8 stata una cosa molto importante.<\/p>\n AC: E per te il trasferimento a Firenze come \u00e8 stato, oltre al fatto che dopo tutti questi anni hai ancora un po\u2019 di accento fiorentino?<\/p>\n RL: A Milano tra la scuola ebraica, una cosa e un\u2019altra, avevo molti amici sia ebrei che non ebrei, quando sono arrivato a Firenze ho trovato un ambiente molto pi\u00f9 chiuso. Frequentavo il liceo\u00a0 Michelangelo -ci sono ritornato per il 40esimo della maturit\u00e0, abbiamo anche rivisto la classe- I ragazzi erano piuttosto antisemiti, mi prendevano per il bavero perch\u00e9 venivo dalla scuola ebraica di Milano. Non gli piaceva come pronunciavo il latino, con l\u2019accento milanese\u2026\u00a0 Quella terza liceo, per me \u00e8 stata piuttosto accidentata. La citt\u00e0 in generale era un po\u2019 chiusa ma anche gli ebrei fiorentini sono un po\u2019 piccini, un po\u2019 provinciali\u2026<\/p>\n AC: I tuoi si sono trovati bene. Per mio padre Firenze \u00e8 stata una salvezza. Si era trovato a quasi cinquant\u2019anni senza lavoro in un periodo in cui di lavoro ce n\u2019era poco, e a Firenze ha avuto un posto ottimo di Amministratore Delegato alla Fila. Lui si \u00e8 trovato molto bene a Firenze.<\/p>\n AC: Con i tuoi genitori, parlavate del periodo in montagna?<\/p>\n RL: Non molto: mia madre era la pi\u00f9 restia, era piuttosto negativa e non ne voleva parlare. Si sono visti sempre con i Mosca almeno una vota l\u2019anno, ma in famiglia non se ne discuteva spesso. I Mosca poi avevano avuto un qualche riconoscimento anche dagli italiani, non ricordo esattamente cosa.<\/p>\n Mia madre diceva sempre che nel loro matrimonio, l\u2019epoca in valle era quella in cui erano stati pi\u00f9 vicini e forse pi\u00f9 uniti. Io senz\u2019altro lo ricordo come il periodo in vita mia\u00a0 in cui ho trascorso\u00a0 pi\u00f9 tempo con mio padre, perch\u00e9 non lavorava.<\/p>\n AC: Cosa facevate insieme tu e lui oltre a cercare il cibo?<\/p>\n RL: Lui cercava di insegnarmi l\u2019inglese e il francese. Ci faceva pregare molto, che ricordo come un fatto negativo e noioso. La sera prima di andare a letto cercava di far pregare me e mia sorella.<\/p>\n Mio padre ci teneva molto.<\/p>\n AC: E la decisione di trasferirti in America come \u00e8 maturata?<\/p>\n RL: Direi per fasi. Prima sono venuto per una postdoctoral fellowship a Baltimora, e l\u00ec ho annusato un ambiente diverso, un mondo pi\u00f9 ampio. Dal punto di vista dello studio e della professione si profilavano orizzonti pi\u00f9 ampi, ma anche dal punto di vista sociale ho visto che era possibile avere in breve tempo amicizie vere con ebrei, tanti, ma anche gente di tutt\u2019altra estrazione. E questo nonostante che Baltimora in quegli anni fosse ancora una citt\u00e0 piuttosto antisemita. Gli ebrei vivevano tutti in un unico rione. Da Baltimora, venivo a New York dove mi sentivo subito molto pi\u00f9 libero nel senso che qui\u00a0 puoi essere ebreo religioso, ebreo laico, assimilato, puoi fare il diavolo che ti pare.\u00a0 Qui ho avuto subito sensazioni di libert\u00e0, mondanit\u00e0, cosmopolitismo.\u00a0 Quando ci siamo trasferiti a New York definitivamente nel 1966, mi sono trovato subito bene, era come aver trovato il posto giusto.<\/p>\n AC: Negli anni hai avuto la tentazione di tornare in Italia?\u00a0 Sono cambiati i tuoi sentimenti per quel paese?<\/p>\n RL: Una volta qua, io e mia moglie, non abbiamo pi\u00f9 pensato a tornare in Italia, i nostri fogli sono cresciuti qui, questo era il loro e il nostro futuro.<\/p>\n Per molti anni ho pensato che l\u2019Italia tutto sommato era l\u2019Italia del fascismo, un paese che si era alleato con Hitler, un paese antisemita eccetera, per\u00f2 anche l\u2019Italia \u00e8 cambiata: direi che \u00e8 pi\u00f9 aperta, verso gli ebrei, verso la Shoah.<\/p>\n AC: Nonostante tutto, in generale gli ebrei italiani sono rimasti molto attaccati all\u2019Italia.<\/p>\n RL: Si, si tratta di una presenza molto lunga con periodi anche floridi. Ho un lontano parente non so se un tri-zio, dalla parte di mio padre, che veniva dall\u2019Emilia, e lui, come tanti altri ebrei \u00e8 stato un Senatore del Regno. Era un ingegnere, non so esattamente cosa avesse fatto forse un acquedotto, in ogni caso, la sua storia, come altre, creava un senso di\u00a0 appartenenza e attaccamento all\u2019Italia, molto forte. Mio padre per esempio si sentiva molto italiano: quando io decisi di trasferirmi qui mi disse: \u201dMa perch\u00e9? Si sta cos\u00ec bene in Italia\u201d. E questo nonostante che proprio lui avesse dovuto portar via la famiglia e nasconderla\u2026 Certo era molto peggio in Francia, in Belgio, in Ungheria o nell\u2019Est Europa.<\/p>\n AC: Come sia chiamava tua madre e da dove venivano?<\/p>\n RL: Mia madre era nata a Ferrara, la famiglia si chiamava originariamente Coen Pirani, ma il Coen era gia\u2019 sparito quando io ero bambino. Mia nonna materna e quel ramo della famiglia, venivano tutti dal Piemonte: da Asti. Erano una famiglia di banchieri, si chiamavano Artom. Molti fratelli e sorelle forse nove o dieci.<\/p>\n AC: Tua moglie dove l\u2019hai conosciuta?<\/p>\n RL: A Firenze all\u2019universit\u00e0. Non \u00e8 ebrea, e anche lei studiava medicina. Poi qui si \u00e8 specializzata in psichiatria e ha praticano la professione per una trentina d\u2019anni. L\u2019altra sua passione \u00e8 stata la pittura, ha dipinto per anni, (ha anche un sito: patrizialevi.com)<\/p>\n AC: La sua famiglia come ha passato la guerra?<\/p>\n RL: E\u2019 stata dura anche per loro. Il padre era un chirurgo ortopedico fu costretto ad arruolarsi nel Regio esercito e fu mandato in Libia, dove mor\u00ec. Lasci\u00f2 la moglie vedova giovanissima; la bambina, che sarebbe diventata mia moglie aveva solo tre anni. La madre, una romagnola purosangue, fu attiva con i partigiani e fu anche messa al muro un paio di volte evitando la fucilazione per un soffio. Poi si \u00e8 risposata quando mia moglie aveva gi\u00e0 pi\u00f9 di vent\u2019anni, con un americano.<\/p>\n AC: Nel tuo sentirti ebreo, che peso attribuisci all\u2019aspetto religioso?<\/p>\n RL: Ho avuto un breve periodo da teenager quando mi interessava la religione, ma \u00e8 durato poco. Spesso si crede, o si cerca di credere che mantenersi \u201cebrei\u201d sia in un certo modo legato alla religione, poi invece ci si accorge che \u00e8 pi\u00f9 legato alla famiglia, alla tradizione a ricordi\u2026<\/p>\n AC: I matrimoni misti rendono pi\u00f9 complesso il tramandare questo senso di tradizione ai figli\u2026<\/p>\n RL: I miei figli si sentono e considerano ebrei, ma lo fanno in maniera molto diversa. Uno totalmente laico, l\u2019altro invece ci tiene molto. Lawrence non aveva nessun interesse a fare il Bar Mitzvah, mentre Alex s\u00ec, ed \u00e8 voluto andare a farlo a Gerusalemme. E\u2019 stata una scelta sorprendente, ma \u00e8 stata una cosa molto molto bella. C\u2019era ancora mia madre e per lei \u00e8 stata una gioia. Quella volta facemmo prima un viaggio in Egitto e fu molto interessante andare dall\u2019Egitto in Israele in quegli anni.<\/p>\n AC: Come \u00e8 iniziato il processo a Yad Vashem che ha portato al riconoscimento ?<\/p>\n RL: E\u2019 stato essenzialmente mio nipote Claudio Della Seta, figlio di mia sorella, nato nel \u201958, il quale lavora a Mediaset (ma non \u00e8 un Berlusconiano). Lui aveva sempre sentito queste storie, da mia sorella e da me, e ha pensato che bisognava fare qualcosa per i Mosca. C\u2019\u00e8 voluto molto tempo, parecchi documenti. Non \u00e8 una cosa facile, per esempio abbiamo cercato di fare qualcosa di simile per quelli che hanno salvato i miei nonni materni, che stavano anche loro in quella casa di Tradate, era casa loro. Quando noi si part\u00ec per la montagna, loro rimasero l\u00ec. Avevano dei parenti, una nipote di mio nonno, di Parma che era cattolica. Lei l\u00ec port\u00f2 vicino a Parma, in una clinica- Ramiola- una clinica un po\u2019 strana dove c\u2019era \u201cricoverata\u201d la figlia di Mussolini Edda Ciano. I tedeschi vennero a cercarli a Tradate proprio 12 ore dopo la loro fuga\u2026Un certo giorno, a Ramiola, si seppe che i tedeschi venivano a prendere Edda Ciano, allora la clinica si svuot\u00f2 compresi i miei nonni. I tedeschi vennero a cercarli proprio 12 ore dopo la partenza\u2026 Questi parenti li portarono sull\u2019appennino parmense. Con loro non si \u00e8 potuto arrivare a un riconoscimento di Yad Vashem perch\u00e9 non c\u2019erano abbastanza documenti poi perch\u00e9 in effetti non li hanno ospitati come nel caso dei Mosca con noi, dunque era pi\u00f9 difficile stabilire\u00a0 il rischio che si erano presi.<\/p>\n AC: La cerimonia, la consegna della medaglia \u00e8 avvenuta in Valmosca?<\/p>\n RL: Si, nella valle e purtroppo non ci sono potuto andare. La nostra prima nipotina faceva il Bat Mitzvah il 28 e la cerimonia era il 31\u2026 Ci sarei andato molto volentieri.\u00a0 Devo dire la verit\u00e0, tornare nella valle, per me \u00e8 un\u2019esperienza cos\u00ec personale, che ho sempre preferito andarci da solo, per riviverla. Forse un giorno potrei andarci con Lawrence o forse anche con Alex\u2026 ma per ora non ho mai voluto.<\/p>\n AC: Oltre alla famiglia hai mantenuto contatti con gli amici della tua giovinezza in Italia?<\/p>\n RL: Con alcuni. Ho dei colleghi di lavoro, uno in particolare, una bravissima persona, poi c\u2019\u00e8 un cugino di mia moglie a cui siamo, molto legati, un professore di storia a Firenze:, Gabriele Turi. Ha scritto anche varie cose sugli ebrei italiani sotto il fascismo. Quando andiamo a Firenze lo vediamo sempre.<\/p>\n AC: In anni recenti, con la distanza geografica, \u00e8 cambiato il tuo rapporto con l\u2019Italia?<\/p>\n RL: L\u2019Italia mi piace moltissimo, mi piace la gente. Ma lo considero pi\u00f9 un paese per le vacanze che un paese in cui \u00e8 possibile immaginare di tornare a vivere. Abbiamo tenuto la casa dei miei genitori in via dei Della Robbia a Firenze fino a pochi mesi fa. Non ci andavamo abbastanza per giustificare tenerla. Mi \u00e8 dispiaciuto perch\u00e9 quella era la prima casa che i miei si erano comprati, prima erano sempre stati in affitto. Da quella casa si vedeva la cupola del Tempio, era un quarto piano. Un tempo si vedeva anche la cupola del Duomo poi \u00e8 cresciuto uno di quelli enormi pini marittimi e ha coperto la vista.<\/p>\n Ma verso Firenze ho un atteggiamento molto ambivalente.<\/p>\n AC: Si sono mai create opportunit\u00e0 professionali per te in Italia?<\/p>\n RL: Qualche anno fa mi avevano offerto un posto come professore di chiara fama, ci ho fatto un pensiero ma le condizioni erano impossibili per me. Volevano che io rinunciassi completamente al mio posto all\u2019universit\u00e0 qui e io non ero pronto a farlo. Ho settant\u2019otto anni e qui continuo a lavorare a tempo pieno, mentre in Italia, a settant\u2019anni ti pensionano\u2026 E soprattutto mi offrivano una cattedra pagata dal governo, senza laboratorio e senza nessuno degli strumenti indispensabili a fare ricerca.<\/p>\n AC: Israele ti ha mai attratto?<\/p>\n RL: Ci ho pensato quando stavo per finire l\u2019universit\u00e0 a Firenze e l\u2019ho contemplato anche dopo i miei primi due anni in America per la postdoctoral fellowship, ma non \u00e8 successo e forse \u00e8 meglio cos\u00ec.\u00a0 Ci sono stato varie volte, \u00e8 un paese difficile, gli israeliani sono gente tosta.<\/p>\n AC: Un bilancio della tua vita a New York\u2026<\/p>\n RL: La trovo ancora una citt\u00e0 stimolante, molto viva e sempre diversa. L\u2019offerta culturale \u00e8 impressionante il problema \u00e8 che si riesce a usufruirne solo in minima parte\u2026 si finisce con lavorare troppo! Ho la fortuna di amare il mio lavoro, la cosa pi\u00f9 bella \u00e8 che mi tiene in contatto costante con i giovani.<\/p>\n AC: Fai pi\u00f9 ricerca o insegnamento?<\/p>\n RL: L\u2019uno e l\u2019altro, forse meno insegnamento: faccio un corso agli studenti di medicina e uno ai graduate students.\u00a0 Io mi occupo di Farmacologia e l\u2019insegnamento della medicina \u00e8 cambiato moltissimo, oggi il curriculum prevede che si insegni sulla base degli organi: il cuore, i polmoni, i reni\u2026 come se il corpo umano fosse tutto spezzettato.<\/p>\n E ho sempre gente giovane in laboratorio ho avuto anche degli italiani molto bravi, che una volta finiti gli studi non sanno mai se rimanere o tornare in Italia\u2026<\/p>\n RL: E i tuoi figli? Sono molto fortunato, sono bravissime persone, non avrei potuto chiedere di meglio! Alex \u00e8 architetto ma si interessa di tutto, \u00e8 sempre stato un Renaissance man, Lawrence invece \u00e8 attratto pi\u00f9 dalle cose letterarie, anche lui \u00e8 bravissimo. Poi Ci sono i nipoti che sono una meraviglia.<\/p>\n AC: C\u2019\u00e8 qualche altra cosa che vuoi aggiungere su cosa ha rappresentato il periodo nella valle nella tua vita?<\/p>\n RL: La valle \u00e8 stata un\u2019esperienza molto, molto importante, proprio una parte essenziale della mia vita. Ci ho trascorso solo due anni a un\u2019et\u00e0 giovanissima\u2026 e cosa \u00e8 stato davvero l\u2019ho capito progressivamente molto pi\u00f9 avanti. Un altro inverno lass\u00f9 non credo proprio che ce l\u2019avremmo fatta tra fame freddo paura\u2026<\/p>\n Allora era quasi un gioco, quasi una fiaba come il film di Benigni. Nonostante tutto ero abbastanza spensierato e non avevo un quadro generale. E\u2019 solo dopo la guerra che si son capite molte cose\u2026<\/p>\n Incontro con Primo Levi<\/b><\/p>\n Mi era piaciuto molto come persona, mi ricordava certi parenti piemontesi da lato di mia nonna. I piemontesi possono essere molto carini anche se sono spesso molto tormentati. Primo Levi in quella fase era chiaramente molto tormentato, abbiamo parlato a lungo della depressione mi ha detto \u201csono clinicamente depresso\u201d. Mi diceva che a volte infilava il foglio nella macchina da scrivere e rimaneva li a guardare questo foglio bianco tutta la mattina. Cominciava proprio allora a usare anche il computer ma il blocco non dipendeva dal mezzo.\u00a0 Mi ha racontato anche di questo che l\u2019aveva salvato a Auschwitz che poi mor\u00ec alcolizzato, praticamente suicidato. Lui ci deve aver pensato molto\u2026 non sapremo mai esattamente ma sai c\u2019era questa scala nella casa dove abitava, una bellissima scala di quelle tipo francesi, mi ricordo\u00a0 quando \u00e8 venuto a aprirmi la prima cosa che gli dissi, non sapendo come rompere il ghiaccio era quanto mi era piaciuta quella scala. Lui mi disse \u201cL\u2019hanno rovinata con l\u2019ascensore\u201d.<\/p>\n Primo Levi non era affato religioso abbiam parlato anche di quello e mi ha detto che della religione faceva volentieri a meno\u2026 Era un uomo di una sensibilit\u00e0 incredibile, leggendolo parti del Sistema Periodico\u00a0 mi sono imbattuto in particolari straordinari. Mi ricordo la scena di quello che dipingeva la cucina, e una bambina che lo guarda. L\u2019uomo le fa un cerchio per terra per delimitare la zona da cui la bambina non deve uscire. Saranno cose vere o immaginate poco importa, ma hanno un potere evocativo\u2026<\/p>\n A me \u00e8 piaciuto molto anche Se non ora, quando<\/em>? Che invece gli americani hanno criticato.<\/p>\n RL: L\u2019incontro \u00e8 stato molto interessante, aveva appena visto Philip Roth, ho notato di romanzi di Roth tradotti in italiano sul suo tavolo e abbiam parlato anche di lui. A me Roth non \u00e8 uno scrittore che piace molto, tranne alcune cose come Patrimony, e The Plot Against America invece\u00a0 a Primo Levi piaceva. Poi vidi la bella intervista che Roth ha pubblicato sul New York Review of Books\u2026<\/p>\n RL: Quando \u00e8 morto primo Levi io per moltissimi mesi, non riuscivo pi\u00f9 a prendere in mano niente di quello che aveva scritto. Mi ci \u00e8 voluto molto tempo per riprendere. Ho letto quasi tutto tranne le ultimissime cose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alessandro Cassin in conversation with Roberto Levi \u201cCompassion and brutality can coexist in the same individual and in the same moment, despite all logic; and for all that, compassion eludes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nWhat a fright! We had just had the Germans in the house. I remember that my mother, convinced that they had come to take us, asked them in Italian “even the children?\u201d After the Germans left, my father went to help the women.<\/p>\n
\nFor many years I had the dream of going back, I actually dreamt of it at night! I dreamed of returning and finding the valley as it had been … I did go back a second time in 1981, the year after my father died, and then again in ’82, and finally with my sister in ’93, 50 years after we had sought shelter there.<\/p>\n
\nthen what you found?<\/p>\n
\nWhen we moved to New York permanently in 1966, I rapidly felt at home, it was like finding the right place.<\/p>\n
\nAt the time it was almost, a game, a fairy tale like Benigni\u2019s Life is Beautiful<\/i>. In spite of everything I was pretty carefree and did not have a general picture of the situation. It was only after the war that we began to understand many things …<\/p>\n
\nHe must have thought a lot about suicide… we will never know exactly but the house where he lived had that beautiful French style staircase\u2026<\/p>\n
\nI also really enjoyed the novel If not now, when?,<\/i> which was harshly criticized in the US.<\/p>\n