Schivo Andrea

Andrea Schivo Andrea Schivo was born in Villanova Di Albenga to a family of farmers. He moved to Milan, where he found work as a prison guard at San Vittore prison. He was given a permit to move between floors, a privilege that was awarded only to a select few of the guards. When the wave of arrests of Jews by the Germans and Italians began after the German invasion in September 1943, many of the prisoners were brought to San Vittore. At the time, the Cardosi family – Clara Pirani Cardosi, her non-Jewish husband and their three daughters, including Guiliana (b. 1926) – were living in Gallarate, near Varese. Clara was arrested in May 1944 by the Varese police, whose efficiency in arresting Jews included ignoring the Salò Republic decisions concerning those from mixed families. She was taken to San Vittore prison, where she was held for a month, before being transferred to the Fossoli Di Carpi transit camp and then on to Auschwitz. While she was at San Vittore, Andrea Schivo helped pass letters between Clara and her family. Schivo also brought Clara packages of food and clothes prepared for her by her family. All these actions had to take place in complete secret, as the prison was frequented by Germans known for their cruelty and unwavering devotion to Nazi ideology. The letters from Clara were written on tiny pieces of paper and folded extremely small, in order that Schivo could bring them out without arousing suspicion amongst the Germans. In one of them, Clara warned her family to be careful, and asked them not to use Schivo's generosity too much in helping them, because security was being tightened and Schivo was placing himself at enormous risk. Nevertheless, the guard continued to bring her packages and letters, and never asked for any personal compensation. Immediately after Clara's transfer to Fossoli Di Carpi, Schivo was arrested for helping Jews. He was held at San Vittore as a prisoner, and then sent to the Flossenbürg concentration campin Germany. There he was abused by guards, and perished. The letters written by Clara to her family while at San Vittore appear in a book published by the Cardosi family. They testify to the help Schivo provided them during her period of incarceration. The book presents the eager collaboration of many Italians in the Nazi death machine, as well as those directly responsible for Clara's arrest and what became of them at the end of the war. The book also praises the heroic actions of those who refused to collaborate with the Germans, choosing instead the moral path of helping those in need. The Milan Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation investigated the events at San Vittore, and revealed that Schivo was indeed arrested and imprisoned at the jail before being transferred to Flossenbürg. A June 1945 letter signed by 19 prison guards state that Schivo was arrested as a direct result of helping provide food to a Jewish family. Schivo's niece, Carla Arrigoni Sala was a young girl during the war years. She testified that she had heard that a Jewish family was imprisoned at San Vittore, and that their young children cried all day long. One day Carla saw Schivo's wife crying while she cooked chicken for her husband to bring to the family. Carla suspects this was the dish that led to Schivo's arrest; the Germans found chicken bones and tortured an elderly member of the Jewish family until he revealed that Schivo was the one that had brought them the food. On 29 August 2006 Yad Vashem recognized Andrea Schivo as Righteous Among the Nations.