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[all cheering]

I love a challenge.

It motivates me to do my best.

I'm not the kind of man
to hold back from a fight.

In 1937,

Gino Bartali wins the Giro d'It

for the second straight year

and secures his place
as Europe's biggest sports idol

Benito Mussolini's Fascist part
has ruled Italy

with intimidation and violence
for 15 years.

And he will soon lead his count
into war.

Before it is over,
Gino Bartali, like every Italia

will face a terrible moral choi

[Bartali]
These are tough times.

Most people struggle just to su

It's a world where arrogance ru

Some have power, some don't.

A life can hang by a thread.

It's a world where you must do

but don't talk about it.

Gino Bartali was risking
his life all during the war.

In my opinion, he is a hero.

There were so many people all ov

who kept our secret

and were involved in our rescue.

Lots of brave Italians risked th

I've always wanted my grandson
to know what they did.

By 1938,

with war looming in Europe,

Italy is one of the only safe h
for Jews

and other refugees
fleeing Nazi persecution.

My mother was pregnant with me.

She witnessed Kristallnacht

and decided it was time to leave

Ten days after her arrival in Mi
I was born.

We were living in Milan
for two and a half years

when we were sent to Ferramonti.

I was 3 years old.

But in my memory,

I never experienced a bad feelin
about the place.

[Charlotte sighs]

It's a very strange feeling.

- To be coming back here.
- What you were expecting?

I really now thought,
"Can I do this trip?"

And then I decided it has to be

I did say "thank you" many times

But it's never enough.

When my family came from Germany
I didn't feel Jewish.

I felt Italian.

I joined the Fascist party,
I marched every Saturday

and I was very happy.

But my father's family was Jewis

They had been in Italy
for many generations.

Well-integrated into Italian soc

In fact, my aunt was called Ital

They were very accomplished,
well-educated.

My father studied chemistry and

And then very young,
he was given the directorship

of a big factory in Padua.

My father and mother
were a very handsome couple and

and, of course,
they moved in the society in Pad

But little by little, the societ
let's say, moved away from them.

MAY 1938

Soon after Adolf Hitler
visits Rome in 1938,

with his plan for a racially-pu

already underway in Germany,

Il Duce decides to impose
a new racial policy in Italy.

"Laws for the protection of the

When I went to school that day,

I saw my teacher

telling the principal that I am

He said, "This child is a Jew"..

And then the principal

came to me together with a polic

and they told me
that from that moment,

I am expelled from the school
and I have to go home.

I started to cry

because I couldn't understand
why I cannot go to my school.

Papa lost his job

and it began
to be more and more difficult.

What was terrible was the silenc

These racial laws were accepted,

and suddenly the Jew
was really a dirty human being.

[crowd cheering]

All this talk about homeland
is just propaganda.

The world is the homeland
of all human beings.

The words of our priest
made a big impression on me:

"Always follow the teachings of

Do good unto others."

One day in Florence,

the president of the cyclists u
came running up.

It was the last day to qualify
for the Tour de France

and he had a telegram

from the Fascist Party secretar
ordering me to leave at once fo

Mussolini has a plan
to show off Italy's Aryan super

on the world stage.

A Bartali triumph in the Tour w

that Italians, too, belong
to the master race.

[train horn whistling]

[announcer speaking in Italian]

In the Pyrenees, as Bartali cha

a record crowd gathers
along the sidelines.

[announcer speaking in Italian]

On July 31st,
headlines about Bartali's lead

appeared next to a story
with the latest on Italy's new

"Jews do not belong to the Ital

The next day, Bartali wins
the Tour's crucial Alpine stage

and holds on to the lead
all the way to Paris.

[announcer speaking in Italian]

[crowd cheering]

The Italian Fascists take credi
calling him their Aryan champio

Bartali rejects the party's pat
insulting Il Duce.

The party has started
a campaign against me,

accusing me of lack of patrioti

But I'm not the type to back do

It's not the last time
Bartali will defy the Fascists.

Look at that.

People lived there. I lived ther

In June 1940, when Italy enters

all foreigners are relocated to
spread across the country.

Italian-Jews are allowed to rem
in their own homes,

but more than 10,000 foreign Je
are among those sent away.

The internees are allowed to pl
wear their own clothing,

and hold religious services.

In the hill town of Campagna,

the internees live
in a 14th century convent

and can move about the town
to mingle with the local citize

Ferramonti, built
in a malaria-ridden swamp in Ca

is the largest camp,
at times holding up to 3000 peo

Conditions are harsh and primit
at first.

But families live together
and the children go to school.

Rabbi Riccardo Pacifici makes
regular visits from Genoa.

I wonder if I can find my fath...

[gasps]

There is...

That's my mother holding me.

My father right there behind her
at a picnic.

Wow.

I can almost feel my parents her

Little did they probably even kn
what would follow this.

As t he Nazis imprison and murde

some refugees are still able
to reach Italy.

After 1938,

more than 10,000 Italian and fo
find an escape route

many with the help
of a relief organization

called the Delegation for Assis
to Jewish Emigrants or DELASEM.

The Fascist authorities coopera

to speed up the exit of Jews
to Palestine and the U.S.

and take a percentage
of the American money

that supports the rescue effort

[soldiers shouting indistinctly]

In the summer of 1943,

when America joins
the Allied invasion of Sicily,

it looks like the end for Fasci
in Italy.

[announcer] Enthusiastic Sicilia
welcome the Yanks with open arm

For thousands of war-weary Sici

the coming of United Nations fo
freedom from Fascism.

Mussolini is imprisoned

and the Italians agree to a cea
on September 8, 1943.

The Germans invade to stop the

They free Mussolini and install
as the head of a puppet regime.

Italy is divided in two.

In the south

the Allies liberate the camps
for foreigners.

In the north, the Nazi SS
and their Italian Fascist allie

take control and begin to hunt

In these dark days,
as the Germans tighten their co

Italians must choose sides.

Obey the Nazi authorities
or risk your life to help those

Some take up arms to join the R

The Italian partisans' main occu
to save people from the Germans.

The Nazi SS continue their swee

through northern Italy,

creating new danger
for Charlotte and her parents.

Before the allies liberated the
in southern Italy,

they had been transferred to co
in a small town near Venice.

We were sent from
Ferramonti to live with a Fasci

We lived there about a year.

Then we were told by someone
that we needed to leave

because the next day,
we were due to be shipped off

to an extermination camp.

Samuele Panichi was
a partisan leader who helped us

He brought us to hide in a vill
called Secchiano.

I remember when Panichi dropped
and handed us over to his frien

Virgilio Virgili and Desolina
and Memmo Paruccini,

and they welcomed us in.

[woman speaks in Italian]

[Charlotte chuckling]

[both speaking in Italian]

[all speaking in Italian]

I remember airplanes
flying overhead dropping leaflet

warning these people:

"If you are hiding Jews or parti
you're dead."

Still, the entire town was in ca
to keep our secret.

[all singing in Italian]

[priest speaking in Italian]

I was sitting
in this church with Mercedes.

Suddenly, the door swung open

and a voice screamed into the c

"The Germans are coming! They'r

I remember shoes and boots, fea

Mama!

Nobody was there.

And I thought,
"The Nazis grabbed them and the

They're dead."

And suddenly, someone grabbed m

There were lots of people hidin
including my mother.

[priest speaking in Italian]

[all speaking in Italian]

[bell tolling]

This is a war without reason,
without honor.

A life costs nothing
and can depend on the whim of a

Shots are fired too easily
and I'm against bloodshed,

especially brother killing brot

It was very dangerous in Firenze

so I was sent to live in the mon
in Settignano,

which is a small village
just nearby Firenze.

At that same time,

my father started to look
where the family can hide.

My father was a friend of Gino B

and he told Bartali
that he's looking for a place to

And Bartali hid my father, my mo
and my sister

to the basement in his house.

In the beginning, in his apartme

and later on,
in the basement of his house,

in spite of knowing
that the German were killing eve

who was hiding Jews.

He was risking not only his life
but also his family.

[both speaking in Italian]

When the war broke out in '39,

we were handcuffed,
put on a train from Alassio to P

They transferred my mother and I

and then my father,
to confino liberoin Città di Ca

Confino liberomeant

that we had to go four times a d
and sign at the police station.

We could walk around,

we could do anything,
but not after eight o'clock at n

Other than that,
we lived like all the Italians.

We had the same coupons,
we had a furnished room.

I was in school at the Silesian

and then in 1943,
the Germans occupied Città di Ca

and the bishop sent for me.

He said, "I heard on the radio
they're arresting all the Jews.

Go and tell your parents
that you have to run away."

And Monsignor Schivo was ready t

When the Germans came,

the entire story of our surviva
was in the hands of Monsignor S

He worked with the partisans
so he knew what the Germans wer

So he moved my father to a dorm
across from a seminary.

And Monsignor sent my mother an
to the Sacro Cuore dressed as n

You know, the Talmud says:

"He who saves one person
saves the universe."

Monsignor Schivo saved a lot of

He saved so many people.

He saved so many people.

They deported them
or put them against the wall.

They never came back.

Never came back.

Reading the story
of what happened to us is one th

but living it is much more inten

We lived it.

[people yelling in Italian]

[inaudible dialogue]

[inaudible dialogue]

By the time
the first Jews are deported fro

most of the people
who will die in Nazi camps

have already been murdered.

Italian rescuers
will face their hardest challen

in the days ahead.

The Nazis find 1,694 Jews in Ro

and deport them all to Auschwit

But more than 10,000 avoid capt
thanks to Dr. Borromeo

and other Italian rescuers
with the courage to defy the Na

The war rages on,

with its victims, its pain,
and its ferocious atrocities.

There is hatred, vengeance
and malicious gossip.

And so much injustice,

spurred on by blind fanaticism.

The Germans relentlessly hold t

at Monte Cassino,
80 miles south of Rome.

[soldiers yelling indistinctly]

Despite outnumbering them three

the Allies are unable to break
to northern Italy for months.

Until they do, the SS and Itali
continue to search for Jews.

We had a nanny whom I adored
called Isabella

and Isabella had a lover, a cara

One night, soon after the armist

this carabiniere, he was called
came to the house,

he risked his life and he warned

He said, "You have to disappear.

And we arrived at Padua station,

which was already
in a state of total confusion.

And we were with my grandmother
and her own mother.

And we all got on the platform.

We headed to the south,

they headed to the north, to Tur

And we only knew
what had happened to them after

quite a long time after the war.

We did go towards the south.

The idea was to arrive in Rome.

Then the train stopped
because the rails had been bombe

So my father decided,
"Let's try somewhere else."

[both speaking in Italian
and chuckling]

And so he went to Osimo
to see a grand lady,

La MarchesaGallo,

who had what to me looked like
an immense palace.

She was sheltering a lot of peop

and the families knew each other
and she said, "Of course, I'll h

Palazzo Gallo
was the main palazzoof Osimo.

So, when the German command arri
in Osimo,

they decided to take it over.

And so they said:

"Who is the waiter,
the butler, the servant?

And La MarchesaGallo
immediately produced Papa,

who was very elegant, spoke some

And so he appeared in white glov

We were hoping really probably
to poison the food rather than...

But for several days,
he was there as the very elegant

and the family down there,
the family of the butler.

I was quite intimidated
because their house was grand.

She was grand.

And we were trained to...

You know, to bow when we saw her

My father invented games,

tried to always tell us stories

and make us feel
that we were living normal times

My mother was much more apprehen

because I think being a woman,
she was much more...

She could see much more clearly
the threat.

One day when my parents
were playing bridge

with LaMarchesaGallo,

the fourth player was a former m

Il Podestà FascistaBosdari.

And while playing,
the podestàlooked at my father

"But you're not Corrado Brizzi.

You are Luxardo Servadio.
I recognize you."

He got up and left.

On the following day,
he went to see la marchesaand s

"Look, we've been friends for a

and I should really denounce you
and you would be shot.

But instead,

I'll give you a couple of days
to get rid of these people."

And la marchesathen called Papa

"Look, Luxardo, you must now dis

You mustn't be here.

You go to the countryside."

So, my father disappeared.

And suddenly we didn't see him
and didn't know what had happene

My mother was alone
with these two small children.

Then finally the 8th army libera

But after three days,
the Germans took it back again.

So, we were warned immediately.

They came and said,
"You must disappear.

You must cross the lines.
You must go to Porto Recanati."

Just a few miles away, there was

And so my mother and my sister a

on one bicycle with our possessi

we left Osimo.

It was not very hopeful
that we would get on the other s

So, finally when we got to Porto

it took months before we found m

or rather my father found us.

I have terrible sadness
and feeling of guilt

towards La MarchesaGallo.

This extraordinary woman

who in fact risked her own life
by hiding us.

You know, after the war,

where I feel we all should have
and said thank you,

we were too humiliated,

too ready to hide to ourselves f

So, by the time I went to Palazz

she had just died.

I saw the daughters

and I remember sort of...

Sort of looking for the place,
finding it, recognizing it,

pressing, you know, the bell,
and one of the daughters came ou

And she embraced me crying, both

And my poor English husband,
who was with me,

didn't know what the hell was ha
[chuckles]

And so it was a very emotional.

And I then said,
"I'm so sad not to see her,

because she was an extraordinary

[both speaking in Italian]

September 1943.

Gino Bartali is summoned to the

by his friend, Cardinal Della C
archbishop of Florence.

After their meeting,
Bartali often leaves home,

disappearing on his bicycle
for days at a time.

He sets off
as if he were back in training.

But never tells anyone where he

Not even his wife.

What Bartali
is doing, where he's going and

remains a secret for most of hi

But years later, he tells one p

There is no written
evidence of his wartime activit

only the testimony of a few wit

and 50 years later,

what Bartali himself begrudging
to his biographer.

I put myself to work with my fr

to help Jews flee the country.

That's when my travels started
to Rome and Assisi.

My friend Berti gets documents
from Cardinal Della Costa

and gives them to me
to deliver to the bishop in Ass

I hide them in the frame of my

I don't want to know what it's
in case they catch me.

Bartali had a special permit

to ride all around Tuscany,

but there was still danger.

When he was riding his bicycle
with false documents,

if the Nazis found out,

they will kill him immediately
on the spot.

Not by bringing him to court
or something like that. Nothing.

They will kill him on the spot.

One of Bartali's destinations
is the Basilica of St. Francis

A center of clandestine activit
overseen by the bishop, Giusepp

Father Aldo Brunacci and other

find hiding places for the refu

I found out later
that the documents I was carryi

were ID cards with false names.

They made it possible for Jews
to leave the country

and reach the freed territories
in the south.

More and more refugees
find their way to Assisi.

To fulfill the growing demand,

the underground recruits
Luigi and Trento Brizi,

who have a printing press in th
next to the St. Francis Basilic

Bartali also rides
to Farneta, part of an undergro

extending from Florence
to Genoa and Assisi.

It is a complex organization
broken into independent cells

to avoid betrayal by spies.

No one knows the activities of

This monastery is a refuge
for those fleeing the Nazis,

including many Jews
who are taken in by the monks

and then moved to towns
in the nearby mountains.

The Nazis take
a hundred and fifty prisoners:

monks, partisans, Italian deser
and two Jews.

The SS interrogates, tortures,
and murders 49 of them.

They send the rest to labor cam
where many die.

But in the 11 months before the

more than 200 Jews escaped depo
by the Nazis,

thanks to the courage
of Father Gabriele Costa.

He is among the first to be sho

These are terrible times,

but a sense of duty and human s
keeps us going.

We have to be cunning

to save our own skin

and others in danger.

Twenty-six monasteries
and convents in Tuscany,

including many
that are supposed to be cloiste

or sealed off from the outside

become part of the clandestine

They provide hiding places
for hundreds of refugees.

The Jewish kids were hidden
almost immediately,

as soon as the persecution start

and I am one of the children
who were saved by the nuns of Se

I am sure that a lot of the nuns
that we were Jew,

but officially,
only the madre superioraknew

about the fact that we were Jew.

Nazi officers were coming to the
to look for Jewish children,

and they asked the children
to stay in lines

and say the Catholic prayers
Ave Maria, Paternoster,

and the madre superiorawas stay
behind the German officer

saying with her lips without... N

the prayers in order to ensure
that the children will say the r

[church bells tolling]

We just acted spontaneously...

FROM THE MEMOIRS
OF MOTHER GIUSEPPINA

every time these desperate h
came knocking on our door

under the threat of arrests,
concentration camps,

shootings and worse.

[all speaking in Italian]

[train horn whistles]

Virgilio Virgili, the man
who helped us, is Mercedes' fath

[man and Charlotte speaking in I

After a time, Virgilio thought
it was getting too dangerous for

in Secchiano.

So, Mercedes, her father,
my parents and I,

started on a long journey by foo

and we proceeded on
to where the Allies were

and we were delivered to them.

And only years later did I find

about what Mercedes' father wen

He was picked up by the Nazis

and for three days, he was tort

And he did not live long after

Strangely enough,
I'm looking for an empty tomb.

It's the tomb of my grandmother.

My father, for a long time,
didn't know what had happened

and went on looking for traces o

After the war, some letters arri

sent from this camp called Fosso

My mother burst into tears.

"June 14th, 1944.

We arrived four weeks ago last n

Weak from hunger and lack of sle

We are in low spirits.

Physically, Mother is declining.

This is my greatest sorrow."

And then they were sent
from Fossoli to Auschwitz.

People knew about...

You know, about camps by then,
but it was unimaginable.

My father used to go
to the railway station in Verona

after the war,

waiting for the trains
of these few people coming back.

And one day, he found one relati

and she was a survivor from Ausc
and he said:

"Please, tell me what happened
to my mother."

And she said, "She was lucky
and her mother were lucky

because they were selected immed
and sent inside a gas oven almos

So, they were spared, in a way,
the horror of the rest.

So, this is the tomb of my grand
Cavour,

and here is my grandmother.

Papa told me when I was quite yo

what had happened to my grandmot
and to her mother.

I started hating everybody,
which I overcame, of course,

and I felt this great injustice

or this unnecessary martyrdoms
of all these people.

But I must say

there were also good things
because there is a side of the I

which is warm,

which saved, which took pity,

risking a lot.

And that, I'll always remember.

The end of '44,

my mother came to the convent
and took me out,

and brought me to the same cella
in which they were hiding.

Gino Bartali saved my life
and the life of my family.

That's clear

because if they were not hidden
in this cellar,

they didn't have a place to go,

and so we were saved
because we were friends of Gino

But not only Gino Bartali.

A big part of the Italians in th
they saved Jews.

It's hard to explain why they di

but most of the Italians were sa

just because
people who even didn't know them

just could not understand
why you should kill somebody

just because he's a little diffe

[all cheering]

In 1948, against all odds,

his strongest years lost to the

Gino Bartali triumphs again
in the Tour de France,

ten years after his first win.

His victory helps unite an Ital
struggling to get back on its f

But Bartali is reticent
if asked about his wartime acti

When there is a rumor floating

of his connection with Assisi
and the Resistance, he shrugs i

saying his silence is out of re
for those who risked more than

Some medals aren't meant
to be worn on your shirt,

but on your soul.