On his return to Italy, Gino received a lukewarm welcome, very different from what he might have expected. The Italian press didn’t dare cover the full details of it, but one otherwise apolitical French newspaper sent a reporter who did. Remembering the public celebrations enjoyed by previous Tour victors from various countries on their return home, and perhaps thinking about how the Italian regime particularly celebrated sports, the reporter was amazed to see how little was being done to commemorate Gino’s victory:
An Italian wins the Tour de France, he wins a sensational international victory and his compatriots—who are Latins prone to delirious joy—don’t react much at all? There’s a problem.… Not a cat at the train station. No organized reception. Nothing. I don’t understand. Let’s keep looking. Is this because Bartali is Catholic? There isn’t exactly harmony currently between Rome and the Vatican.
Events in the following days seemed to confirm his suspicions. Unlike the soccer team, Gino would not be invited to a flashy photo shoot with Mussolini. At the velodrome in Turin, during his first appearance as a Tour champion before a large audience in Italy, the head of the Italian Cycling Federation was conspicuously absent. The atmosphere was decidedly reserved, though the regime could not snuff out all emotion. As Gino rode his victory lap around the velodrome, his mother sat in the audience wearing a special blue dress for the occasion. She cried softly with happiness.
By early August, the regime’s frustration with Gino escalated even further. Fascist officials sent Italian newspapers strict instructions regarding their coverage of Gino. A former journalist himself, Mussolini had closely controlled what newspapers wrote about for years. His Fascist press office, the Ufficio Stampa, would send secret bulletins to the editorial offices of publications with rigid guidelines on what to cover and how to cover it. They even specified the acceptable vocabulary, the type, and the size of the letters. And on August 9, 1938, the Ufficio Stampa made the regime’s feelings about Gino astonishingly clear to the press: “The newspapers should cover Bartali exclusively as a sportsman without any useless accounts of his life as a private citizen.” Practically, this meant Gino would receive less coverage in the press. It also ensured that journalists could cover only Gino’s results and provide none of the extra details and color that helped create the heroes that readers adored.
Of course, in August 1938 no journalist dared tell Gino about the regime’s secret orders. If Gino himself noticed a change in his press coverage, he kept his mouth shut. His scorn for the regime had thus far been veiled—he made a statement by the statements he didn’t make. But as the winds of war began to tug at Italy’s borders, no man would be able to live outside of the tempest that was to come. Gino didn’t know it yet, but he was about to ride straight into the political morass his father had warned him to avoid at all costs.
Part II
6
From the Stars to the Stables
Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa with Gino and Adriana Bartali on their wedding day, November 14, 1940.
(photo credit 6.1)
AFTER WINNING CYCLING’S HIGHEST honor, Gino planned to round out his best season to date by capturing the 1938 World Championship title in Holland. The race started a few weeks after he finished in France, and should have been a final feather in his cap after his Tour victory. Instead he suffered an embarrassing loss. He blamed it on a bad team strategy and various bike problems, but the defeat was so humiliating that one secret spy report speculated that Gino had lost on purpose to deny the Fascists a victory and get back at them for their hostility toward Catholic Action.
The spy was wrong. Gino was too proud to cede victories, and he was furious that people could now contest his status as the best cyclist in the world. A few days later he returned home to Italy and encountered even more blowback from fans. Gino was competing in a one-day cycling event in Milan that consisted of several track events. When he rode out into the velodrome for the warm-up, he proudly wore the yellow Tour jersey he had fought so hard to win for his Italian countrymen. The spectators, however, booed him loudly and produced a deafening, shrill noise. Bianchi, the rival of the Legnano team (for whom Gino raced in Italian competitions), had handed out whistles, encouraging people to blow them at Gino for disgracing Italy at the World Championships. Gino bought his own whistle to blow back at his hecklers. “But the noise of them en masse was terrible,” he said.
In a fit of anger, Gino ripped off his yellow jersey and screamed at those sneering at him, “Milanese, you are not sportsmen!” He raced wearing his Legnano jersey and won every event in which he competed, even earning himself grudging applause by the end of the night. Despite the wins, however, this experience with fickle fans seared itself in Gino’s memory. “The pedestal of fame is neither very comfortable, nor is it very secure,” he concluded.
Gino kept competing, and the final races of the 1938 season drew big crowds as they always had of Italians who were enchanted by the “bronzed faces bent over handlebars grimacing with effort, legs that pedal at a dizzying loom … people eating while pedaling; a medley of shouts, calls and horns, photographers climbing on the roofs of cars [and] rapid motorcyclists with warriors’ helmets.”
Yet as normal life and the world of races continued in Italy, serious changes were afoot for the country’s minority Jewish community. In Fiume, where Gino’s friend Giacomo Goldenberg lived with his wife and two children, the first tremor was felt just after the last sun-kissed days of summer.
On a quiet morning in early September 1938, Goldenberg’s six-year-old son, Giorgio, set out for his first day of school. He had endured his mother’s fruitless attempts to tame his squirrel’s nest of curls for the big day, and his uniform was a starchy reminder that the carefree days of summer were over. After he left the spacious villa that his family shared with their cousins, the Kleins, he kept tugging at the itchy fabric as he trotted toward the schoolhouse. But the pleasant flutter of first-day anticipation made a little discomfort bearable. The classroom would be a disappointing change from the seaside resort where Giorgio and his family had spent their August holidays, but he would finally get to see many of his friends again.
When the schoolhouse came into view, Giorgio bounced a little on his feet and scanned the yard for the nearest classmate he could dart over to for a quick game of tag or hopscotch before the bell rang. Instead, he stopped short. Near the entryway, a teacher stood with a uniformed police officer and the school principal. Giorgio eyed the trio curiously as he headed toward the familiar faces of his schoolmates who were lining up to go inside. He was promptly distracted by the skinny arms of friends flung warmly over his shoulders and the excited jostling that ensued. His attention was not diverted for long. Smiling absentmindedly at the other boys’ jokes and laughter, he kept glancing back at the teacher, the policeman, and the principal by the door. He was alarmed and confused to find that as they quietly conferred with one another, they were looking unmistakably at him. Bewildered, Giorgio tucked himself behind the other kids and followed them toward the entrance. He saw the teacher move toward him and instinctively kept his head down, lifting it only when he felt her hand on his shoulder, separating him from his friends. One by one, the teacher pulled aside all the Jewish students who were registered to attend the school. When she had finished, the police officer addressed the small group that had formed. Speaking matter-of-factly, he announced that as a result of a new law, they had been permanently expelled. With that, he forbade them from ever entering the building again. Giorgio watched his friends file in for classes as he gripped his satchel tightly in his small hand and his face grew hot with shame. As he and the other Jewish children were ushered toward the gates, he blinked back prickly tears, stunned and utterly disoriented.
In the evening, Giorgio recounted the day’s events to his father. It was a scene that would play out in many homes as Jewish children across the nation discovered that they had been banned from state schools. A good number of families would react to this new regulation with
surprise; it represented such a sharp shift from past Fascist policy that it was hard to think of it as anything but a temporary aberration. Even in Nazi Germany, Jewish children were still permitted to attend public schools in September 1938. Other parents were more resigned, having anticipated that something like this would follow the Racial Manifesto, which had come out in July of that year. Still others reacted with angry confusion, astonished that a community that had made such sizable contributions to Italian government and culture was now being targeted.
In quick succession, the Fascist Grand Council, a quasi-legislative body that served under Mussolini, approved a series of laws that restricted Jews in almost every facet of their lives. Those like Giacomo Goldenberg, who were born elsewhere and had become citizens after 1919, were summarily stripped of their citizenship and declared foreigners. Italianborn Jews were expelled from a variety of professions and banned from owning real estate above a fixed value. Alongside these more dramatic restrictions, the Racial Laws unleashed scores of small humiliations that revealed themselves over the coming weeks and months. Signs declaring “No Entry to Jews and Dogs” started appearing in certain gathering spots throughout cities and towns, particularly in the north. Elsewhere, local parks, skating rinks, and cafés became off limits. Even those who died were targeted, as it became difficult to publish Jewish obituaries. The shock of these measures was overwhelming. One Italian Jew who lived through it described the experience succinctly: “We went from the stars to the stables.”
As chaos reigned in the Jewish community, little changed for most Italian Gentiles, who went about their daily lives as they always had. Gino was no different. He started the 1939 season with fierce determination and became fervid in his quest to reclaim his dominance in cycling. The first place to do so was the race that meant most to his countrymen: the Giro. But a string of unlucky tire punctures quashed that aspiration. His next conquest should have been the 1939 Tour de France. As a returning champion he was a prime contender. But Gino was dealt another blow by Mussolini’s regime when Italy abstained from participating in the 1939 Tour as a result of increasingly hostile relations with France. Gino was robbed of the chance to defend his title. He could scarcely accept it. The government had meddled in his career before, but taking the whole country out of contention was government interference on an altogether larger scale. After a quick rise to the top of the sport at such a young age, this string of losses and disappointments devastated Gino. He started scrambling to find someone or something that could help him win again.
He found who he was looking for at a regional race in 1939 in Piedmont, in northern Italy. His name was Fausto Coppi and he was a “reed-thin lad” who looked “more like a thin, starving goat than a cyclist,” according to his coach. There was something delicate, almost intellectual, about Coppi’s pointed features next to Gino’s boxer’s face, surprising given that Coppi had grown up in a family of poor farmers near Turin. A promising young cyclist, he raced under the auspices of a blind and obese coach who grabbed his charges by the scruffs of their necks to assess whether they had pushed themselves hard enough during their training. Coppi was but nineteen years old—five years younger than Gino.
The Tuscan had met Coppi at a small race in Arezzo, but it was in Piedmont that he first witnessed his strength. On the suggestion of his Tour coach, Girardengo, Gino had let Coppi attack first during the climb. During some point in that attack, Coppi’s chain fell off. Gino made a break and won the race. At the finish line, he discovered that Coppi had managed to beat back a strong field of competitors to place third. Impressed, Gino encouraged his team’s directors to sign the young cyclist. Coppi joined the team that night.
Confident in the group of riders supporting him, Gino dedicated the entire winter to preparing for the 1940 Giro. He pored over the route map and began hatching a strategy on how to win. When the weather improved, he was out on his bicycle targeting his weakest areas, such as his sprints. Soon after, he started scouting parts of the race. As he visited different parts of the course, he carried out his newest reconnaissance strategy of building a list of local restaurants and innkeepers that he could call up to get more accurate information about local weather and road conditions during the race. All this preparation quickly yielded results. In the spring of 1940, Gino launched a blistering sprint during the day-long race from Milan to San Remo and won it. A month later he won the Tour of Tuscany. By the time the Giro rolled around in May 1940, Gino seemed unbeatable. Indeed, the first stage could hardly have been smoother. After setting out from Milan, he was the picture of confidence and crossed the finish line in Turin right after the stage winner.
In the second stage, catastrophe crept up on him. The peloton had set out for Genoa. As the riders wove their way along the mountain roads, a dog darted out onto the race course. Gino crashed into it and was thrown from his bike. When he landed, he was seized by a violent, throbbing pain in his leg. Still he managed to get back up and finish the stage. In the evening, a doctor revealed that he had severely strained his muscle and advised he withdraw from the Giro. Gino refused, but soon realized that he had no chance of winning. The race was wide open again. Coppi, Gino’s supporting rider and a first-time competitor at the Giro, rode brilliantly into this vacuum and won. Gino was dumbfounded. He had just recently risen to the top of the sport, only to be supplanted by a rider he had hand-picked for his team.
Years later, when Coppi and Gino were pitted against each other in the biggest sporting rivalry Italy had ever seen, this first match-up would be remembered and described in mythic terms. Among the coppiani—Coppi’s fans—it would be recalled as the archetypal moment when the brave apprentice first challenged his master. To the bartaliani, spurred on by Gino’s exaggerated accounts of how he had supported Coppi, it was a moment of nearly messianic sacrifice as the legendary champion forswore his own prospects to propel his younger teammate forward. In June 1940, however, neither Gino nor Coppi had much time to think about it. A day after the Giro finished, Benito Mussolini walked out onto a balcony overlooking the Piazza Venezia in central Rome and announced that Italy had entered the war against England and France. Gino was devastated: “A great tragedy was to befall us all.”
A few days after Mussolini’s declaration, a group of armed Italian policemen appeared at the home of the Goldenbergs and the Kleins in Fiume. As chance would have it, the Goldenbergs all happened to be out. The Kleins, however, were home when the officers knocked on the door. Signora Klein took one look at them from a window and immediately understood why they had come. In a flurry of panic, she instructed her older son, Aurelio, to escape before they saw him. He immediately jumped out of a second-floor window and slipped out the backyard. The police entered the house as he left and took his parents and younger brother into custody, as part of a nationwide initiative to arrest both Jewish and non-Jewish foreigners residing in Italy.
Upon arrest, people like the Kleins, who were classified as foreign nationals, were taken to the local police station. There they were held for several hours and questioned before they were transferred to a local prison. In the prisons, they were crowded into cells, often alongside common criminals. Many waited for weeks, coping with appalling sanitary conditions and vermin. Then, in small groups supervised by police, they were typically handcuffed and marched through city streets to trains and taken to internment camps.
It remains a mystery where the Kleins were sent. It’s possible that they were sent to Ferramonti di Tarsia in southern Italy. Built on a swampy, malaria-plagued site, it was Italy’s largest internment camp. It’s more plausible, however, that the Kleins ended up in one of the roughly forty smaller camps that were opened to accommodate newly arrested foreign prisoners. Most were located in central or southern Italy, but a few were in the north, in the province of Parma. Hastily set up by local authorities across Italy, these camps were established in large buildings that the authorities requisitioned, including hospices, movie theaters, and villas.
The F
ascists set up one such impromptu camp near Gino’s hometown of Ponte a Ema in a grand mansion in the Tuscan hills called Villa La Selva. The internment camp was kept top secret. Gino and his neighbors never knew it existed; guards kept any outsiders from coming close. A prison for some 160 people, including a large number of foreign Jews, it was chronically overcrowded and under-supplied. Prisoners were forbidden from working and were given a daily allowance of 6.5 lire for food and other necessities. Most survived on a bowl of watery soup and 150 grams of bread per day. All of this added up to a meager existence, but it was wholly different from the experience of Jews in German-controlled camps elsewhere in Europe, where torture and mass murder became the norm. Jews interned in Italy would not be singled out for brutal cruelty for being Jewish, and they enjoyed the freedom within their camps to set up community institutions like synagogues and schools. None would be turned over for deportation before the Germans took control in the autumn of 1943, despite frequent pressure from Nazi officials.
Giacomo Goldenberg and his family would only discover what their cousins had to endure in the months and years that followed. On the day of the Kleins’ arrest in 1940, however, Goldenberg knew just one thing: he needed to get his own family out of Fiume. Packing what things they could carry, they left the next morning on a train for Florence. When they arrived, they made their way to Fiesole, a sunny village that was just a few miles northeast of the city, up on a hill with a scenic view of Florence. On a side street near the ruins of an old Roman theater, they found a landlord willing to rent them a small house.
Road to Valour Page 10
