Virgili Virgilio & Daria (Maestrini); Daughter: Faraoni Mercedes (Virgili); Daughter: Carnali Gianna (Virgili)

Virgili, Daria Virgili, Virgilio Carnali, Gianna Faraoni, Mercedes In 1943, in a small village in the Appenine Mountains, Secchiano di Cagli, near Ancona, the Virgili family saved Wolf and Esther Fullenbaum, originally from Poland, along with their daughter, Charlotte, who had been born in Milan in November 1938. The Fullenbaums lived in Milan for two years, and then they were sent to Ferramonti, an Italian concentration camp in Calabria. They were later transferred to a camp of “confino libero” in Piove di Sacco, a town located in Padua province. After September 8, 1943, in the hope that the Allies would arrive within days, they were on an escape route to the south together with other refugees, when they arrived in Secchiano. The villagers took them in, sheltered and fed them at risk to their own lives. Charlotte (later Hauptman) remembered celebrating her fifth birthday in the village; they left before she was six years old, in the summer of 1944. In the village of 600 inhabitants, Virgilio Virgili owned a general store combined with a snack-restaurant. His house – where he lived with his wife, Daria Maestrini, and three children – was more spacious than that of most of the people in the village. The Fullenbaums were accommodated in the Virgili house in a room they had to share with the youngest child, Mercedes. Gianna (later Carnali), their eldest, was a young woman then and she too helped the rescued family. Several days later the Fullenbaums moved to the schoolhouse. From there they were transferred to a safer place. The people of the village were well aware of the true identity of the family in hiding. One day, Charlotte’s mother stopped going to the miller’s wife, to purchase flour. But the latter, noticing her absence, offered a trade. She suggested that, if Esther would give her her gold wedding ring, this would be payment enough for any food the family would need. Many years later the ring was restored to Charlotte, who was then living in theUnited States. The miller’s wife had left specific instructions in her will that Esther Fullenbaum must be found and her wedding band returned to her. For Charlotte’s safety, she was taught about Catholicism and how to behave in church. Charlotte’s parents spoke Italian with a heavy accent, and in times of danger, they pretended to be deaf-mutes while working in the fields. According to Charlotte, Virgilio and his daughter Mercedes (later Faraoni) escorted her family for several days and nights on their last journey to freedom, to the British-occupied zone. From the British camp the family was sent to a displaced persons’ camp in Cinecittà, near Rome, and eventually settled in Rome. In 1950, the Fullenbaums left for the United States. Near the end of the war, Virgilio was arrested by the Germans, interrogated, but released after three days as no evidence was found against him. He died in November 1945. After the war Charlotte and her parents maintained contact with their rescuers. She returned to the village in 1983, and again in 1990. On February 11, 1992, Yad Vashem recognized Daria and Virgilio Virgili and their daughters, Gianna Carnali and Mercedes Faraoni, as Righteous Among the Nations.