Piana Ercole & Gina

Piana, Ercole Piana, Gina Conci, Aurelio Conci, Ines The Ottolenghi family – Guido, his wife, Eva (née Olivetti), and their daughters, Renata, 14 and Lidia, 12 – originally from Turin, at first found refuge for a month and a half in the mountain area of Champorcher, in the Aosta province. When, on December 3, 1943, the police came to round up the Jews in the area, the Ottolenghi family managed to escape but the policemen continued their pursuit. After traveling 20 km. on a dangerous and snowy road, the Ottolenghis reached the village of Bard in the Aosta province. They came to the house of the head of the village, Ercole Piana, and pleaded with him to help them. Piana, and his wife, Gina, could not refuse the persecuted Jews who asked for asylum. When the policemen arrived, they managed to bribe them, and thus saved the Ottolenghis from imprisonment, deportation, and death. Subsequently, after a dangerous train journey, the Ottolenghis arrived in Milan where they planned to find a safe shelter. Through an acquaintance who worked in the Olivetti factory, they were brought to the home of coworker Aurelio Conci and his wife, Ines Conci. Although this couple had never met them before, they hid them for three days, thereby endangering their lives. While the Ottolenghis were under their roof, Aurelio looked for guides he could trust who would lead them over the border to Switzerland. Aurelio escorted them to the border at great risk. Then he waited in one of the farms near the border for the guides to return and report that the family had safely reached their destination. Only then did he pay them. One day their house was searched, but when the SS did not find any Jewish documents, they took Ines’s jewelry instead. This incident was so traumatic for Aurelio that he stopped working for an entire year. On April 16, 1978, Yad Vashem recognized Ercole and Gina Piana and Aurelio and Ines Conci as Righteous Among the Nations.