Marconi Giocondo & Annina (Belloni)

Marconi, Giocondo Marconi, Annina David and Elsa (Esther) Schaufeld lived in Hamburg, Germany, with their two children, Yosef (b. 1932) and Peggy (Adina, b. 1936). In 1940 David managed to procure visas for the entire family to immigrate to Shanghai. They made their way to Italy, to the port of departure in the city of Trieste, but they never made the journey to China, choosing to remain in Italy instead, settling in Nervi (Genova). By June of 1940 Italy had also joined the war, and foreign Jews were soon arrested and interned in camps. David was interned in Campagna, near the town of Salerno, while Elsa and the children were taken to Potenza; there they enjoyed relative liberty, although they had to report twice daily to be registered. Eventually the father was permitted to reunite with his family, and they all moved to Arezzo. They were supported financially and socially by DELASEM, a Jewish Italian relief organization, and so managed to get by. In September 1943 Italy signed the armistice agreement with the Allies and was immediately occupied by Germany. A few short weeks later, a Jewish neighbor by the name of Marbach broke the news that Germans have arrived in Arezzo. Both the Schaufelds and the Marbachs (a family of three, of Austrian origin) immediately packed up what they could and left. They boarded a train and got off at the final stop, then walked for several hours with no particular destination, finally arriving in the small town of Anghiari. Not knowing what to do or where to go, the seven refugees walked into a local restaurant. Shortly after they entered, a police sergeant came in and, after questioning them briefly, took the two men with him. The women and children remained stranded and frightened for several hours, but by evening all three had returned. It later transpired that many of the townsmen, including the police sergeant himself, were members of the anti-fascist underground. Schaufeld and Marbach were given false identity papers (Schaufeld’s bore the name “Scapelli”), as well as a provision of food stamps. The two families were then directed to local houses; the Schaufelds were taken in by the Marconis. Giocondo Marconi, a carpenter, and his wife, Annina, took the Schaufelds in as family. They hosted the family of four for as long as they could, without asking for anything in return. But only a few short months later, a German force was stationed in Anghiari, and the danger became too close. Giocondo devised a plan to get the two families out of harm’s way: with a cart and two oxen, he drove them into the woods and high into the mountains, where there was a small settlement of a few farmers. The Schaufelds and Marbachs were taken into an empty dwelling in that small settlement, Verrazzano, where they remained until the liberation. They were cared for by the local farmers, and each day a partisan by the name of “Tigre” (whose real name was Scimi Oltero) came by to make sure they were safe. After they were liberated by British soldiers, the family left for Palestine on board the “Princess Kathleen.” “Gli Italiani son buona gente,” (“Italians are good people”) wrote Yosef Saghi (né Schaufeld) many years later to Yad Vashem, “otherwise, my story would have been much different, and much shorter. In the eye of the storm that was raging across Europe, the people of Anghiari have risked their lives to save two Jewish families, without any reward or compensation.” On July 9, 2013, Yad Vashem recognized Giocondo and Annina Marconi as Righteous Among the Nations.