Overview
- Interview Summary
- Samuel Modiano, born in Rhodes, Greece; discusses being deported to Auschwitz at the age of 13, first being transferred by boat and then by cattle car.
- Interviewee
- Samuel Modiano
- Date
-
interview:
2010 April 18
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Ariel Baron
Physical Details
- Language
- Italian
- Genre/Form
- Oral histories.
- Extent
-
1 DVD-ROM.
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Jews--Persecutions--Italy. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Italy--Personal narratives. Men--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Italy--History--German occupation, 1943-1945.
- Personal Name
- Modiano, Samuel.
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
Ariel Baron
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Ariel Baron produced the interview with Samuel Modiano in Rome, Italy on April 18, 2010. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the interview in July 2010.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 09:19:02
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn42747
Download & Licensing
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- See Rights and Restrictions
- Terms of Use
- This record is digitized but cannot be downloaded online.
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Also in Oral history interviews of the Ariel Baron collection
Oral history interviews with survivors of the Holocaust born or living in Italy.
Date: 2010
Oral history interview with Lazzaro Mieli and Giuditta Mieli
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Lazzaro Mieli (born in Rome, Italy on the February 22, 1936) and Giuditta Mieli (born in Rome), speak about their time as children living in Rome before and during the war; the lack of antisemitism in Italy before the war and how citizens were not defined by their religions; the rise of antisemitism in government agencies (they discussed this with their non-Jewish friends who saved them); Guiditta reflects on the routines throughout the war when they heard the sirens in Rome; living in San Ambrogio, where the sirens would ring seven times and this is when they would know to evacuate their homes; going to many places, but the one they considered most safe was Palazzo Mattei (which is close to Teatro Marcello); how residents were told to pack prepared bags of essentials and leave them by the front doors so when the sirens would hit they could leave quickly; the “dark day” of October 16, 1943 when the Germans rounded up and deported many of the Jews; the deportation of most of their family, including their younger sister Rina; not knowing Rina’s fate until the Allied rescue; evading capture along with their parents by staying from October to December 1943 at their grandmother’s apartment which was in a Catholic area; dressing in way to blend in, carrying baskets of food and not looking like they were running away like other Jewish families, who often wore long coats over pajamas, during a hasty escape; Catholic friends who would bring them food and hide them; spending most of the final years in a Catholic convent; their belief that some people in the community knew the invasion and deportations would happen but did not say anything in order to protect themselves; and how to this day they still question why it happened and why no one powerful did anything about it.
Oral history interview with Adolfo Perugia
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Adolfo Perugia, born in Rome, Italy, discusses how he was a member of the partisan group Giustizia e Liberta.
Oral history interview with Angelo Livoli
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Angelo Livoli, born in Rome, Italy, discusses how he suffered under the racial laws in Italy; escaping the Nazis; hiding in a convent; and how the nuns in the convent attempted to convert him to Catholicism.
Oral history interview with Piero Gai
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Piero Gai, born in Rome, Italy, discusses how he suffered under racial laws in Italy; how he hid from the Nazis in a convent; and how he escaped from Fascist captors by fleeing into a forest.
Oral history interview with Mirella Tedeschi
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Mirella Tedeschi, born in Rome, Italy, discusses how she lived in Frascatti, Italy and suffered under racial laws in the country.
Oral history interview with Sara Piatelli in Pavoncello
Oral History
Sara Piattelli in Pavoncello describes how she experienced racial laws in Italy; how she escaped from Rome to nearby towns where she hid from the Nazis; and how he grandfather was deported to Auschwitz near the end of the war.
Oral history interview with Enza Di Cave
Oral History
Enza di Cave, born on January 2, 1928 in Velletri, Lazio, discusses her family, including her three siblings and her parents; her family evading deportation and surviving the war; the lack of antisemitism before the Germans came to Rome in 1938; the fascism under Mussolini, and having to give up their gold before 1938; visiting Rome with her family to visit her grandparents and relatives; her grandfather Angelo Di Castro, who was a journalist, reporting his concerns to the family in May 1938 when the Germans had started arriving in Rome; seeing announcements in the paper that Jewish children could not attend school and that Jewish families could not have help in their homes; her family planning to move to France, but being thwarted when the deportations of Jews began in October 1938; her uncle reporting to them what was happening in Rome on October 16, 1938 after walking several hours from Rome to Velletri; going into hiding with her family; staying in their villa in the countryside; knowing 22 people who were sent to concentration camps including all her grandparents; deciding they were no longer safe in the villa and hiding with the help of farmers; staying in wine cantinas and moving around a lot; her father, who had to wear a disguise because he was well-known in the area; her father obtaining false documents that made the family’s name “Di Carlo”; how the Germans would regularly go to the countryside to get food and there was one German doctor who took an interest in Enza and wanted to marry her when the war was over (he did not know they were Jewish and they would entertain the idea of her marrying him to keep him happy); hearing sirens on September 8, 1943 and a lot of the people of Velletri hiding in caves; discovering the whole town had been destroyed after the sirens stopped; moving Monte Mario, where they lived in an apartment; how German soldiers would often knock at the door as they would get the home confused with the neighbors who were prostitutes; continuing to live in great fear; hearing about the liberation and seeing the German tanks running from the Allied forces; and her worries for future generations and her hope that they can avoid another event similar to the Holocaust.
Oral history interview with Tatiana Bucci and Alessandra Bucci
Oral History
Tatiana Bucci and Alessandra Bucci discuss how they were deported to Auschwitz at the ages of 4 and 6, along with their mother; how their father was forced into being a Fascist Italian soldier because he was not Jewish; how Dr. Mengele spared them from the gas chambers; how they were separated from their mother after the war and were brought to England; and how they were later reunited with both their mother and father.
Oral history interview with Fortuna Taranto
Oral History
Fortuna Taranto, born in Turkey, discusses suffering under racial laws in France.
Oral history interview with Alberto Sed
Oral History
Alberto Sed, born on December 7, 1928 in Rome, Italy, discusses his father, who died when Alberto was seven years old; his three sisters; his older sister being orphaned as his mother could not afford to look after all the siblings; his mother, who had a small shop in Piazza Campitelli and was told in 1938 that she could no longer serve customers because she was Jewish; loyal customers continuing to use his mother’s services covertly; being expelled from school when he was 10 years-old because of racial laws; beginning work in the markets as a helper after his mother lost her shop; being fired after it was discovered that he was Jewish; being taken by the Germans in October 1943 by bus to camp Fossoli; staying in the camp briefly before being sent to Auschwitz in an animal truck; being sent to their blocks and being given a number (Alberto's number was 500491); being told to memorize his number in German and to learn to respond quickly when he was called or else the Germans would beat him; meeting an Italian soldier with one arm, who was imprisoned in Auschwitz because he would not collaborate with the Germans, and being told by this soldier to do everything he said and he would survive; the demographics of the camp; the German guards; how Sundays were the worst days because the Germans were usually drunk and they would take pleasure in causing harm or suffering to the Jewish people, for example they would make them fight with dogs, or kick them in to the swimming pool and if someone would try to come out, they would kick them in the head; the Italian soldier instructing him to make a knife with the spoon he was given and cut up any herbs or greens he saw growing on the land as this would help him to survive; his work carrying heavy stones and after four days of this, being so tired, he chose not to work; the Germans beating him up and making him stand in front of an electric fence and positioning dogs behind him (if he fell either side he would get hurt so he had to stay alert); witnessing soldiers throwing newborn Jewish babies around in the air for fun; becoming a boxer in the camp in order to get more food; being sent on a death march and seeing many people die every day; going to camp Dora; meeting a French doctor who hid him under the beds; and the liberation of the camp.
Oral history interview with Giuseppe Di Porto
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Giuseppe Di Porto discusses how he was persecuted under racial laws in Italy; being deported to Auschwitz; how he was subjected to forced labor on the banks of the Tiber River; his escape from Auschwitz with a Russian man; how he was subjected to forced labor by Russian soldiers; and returning to Rome, Italy after the war.
Oral history interview with Lello Di Segni
Oral History
Lello Di Segni, born Nov. 4, 1926 in Rome, Italy discusses his childhood in the old ghetto on Via Del Portico D'Ottavia Number 9; being deported to Auschwitz on October 16, 1943; how only 16 people returned to Rome from that deportation to Auschwitz; spending one month in Auschwitz before he was taken to the Warsaw Ghetto as forced labor; and being transferred to Dachau where he was liberated.
Oral history interview with Sergio Frassinetti
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Sergio Frassinetti, born in Rome, Italy, discusses how he experienced racial laws in Italy during his teenage years and how he hid from the Nazis in a convent.
Oral history interview with Giulia Spizzichino
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Giulia Spizzichino, born in Rome, Italy; discusses how many of her relatives were arrested during the Fosse Ardeatine Massacre, a mass execution that was carried out in the Ardeatine caves in Rome, Italy on March 24, 1944.
Oral history interview with Giulia Sermoneta
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Giulia Sermoneta, born in Rome, Italy, describes how she narrowly escaped the Nazis on October 16, 1943.
Oral history interview with Ugo Foa
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Ugo Foa, born in Naples, Italy, discusses how he suffered under racial laws in Italy and how he only experienced 25 days of Nazi occupation.
Oral history interview with Gabriele Ajó
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Gabriele Ajó, born in Rome, Italy, discusses how he suffered under racial laws and how he escaped from Rome and hid from the Nazis in a nearby town.
Oral history interview with Susanna Frassineti
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Susanna Frassineti discusses how she experienced racial laws in Italy and how she escaped from the Nazis by fleeing with her family to Switzerland.
Oral history interview with Pupa Garribba
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Pupa Garribba, born in Italy, discusses how she and her family escaped to Switzerland after Germany occupied Italy.
Oral history interview with Edith Bruck
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Edith Bruck, born in Hungary; discusses how she was deported to a ghetto and then Auschwitz; staying in Barrack number 11; being forced to clean the latrines; how she experienced selections in Auschwitz; and being transferred to many camps until she was finally liberated from Bergen-Belsen.
