An Italian Jewish family’s story rebuilt

Every corner of Jerusalem has a myriad of stories and anecdotes to reveal. They often span over centuries, if not thousands of years. Not too far from the old capital city, the Nahon Museum of Italian Jewish Art preserves some of these meaningful secrets and icons of beauty. Unknown to many locals, this tiny space is home to hundreds of artifacts and pieces of art which connect the land of Israel to Italy, I-Tal-Yah, the island of God’s dew.

In visiting this Museum, everyone can admire a simple wooden Aron ha-Kodesh originally from San Daniele del Friuli, Udine. Patiently crafted by Natanaele Luzzati, whose first name still today appears hidden in Hebrew characters on its top right corner, for nearly four centuries, this Ark hosted the Torah scrolls for its local small and well-known Jewish community. As someone who originally came from the same Province of Italy, the existence of this Ark made me unexpectedly discover that a small Jewish family used to live in my village of Mereto di Tomba (Udine), which is just a few kilometres away from San Daniele del Friuli.

Who could have ever imagined that from this single artifact, the untold story of this family would have been revealed again? After 80 years of complete oblivion and over thirteen months of fine remote and on-site research, we consulted multiple civic, state, religious and private archives. We were eventually able to rebuild their family story and learn about their tragic destiny with the primary and secondary sources at our disposal.

This is the story of the married couple Norma Stella Colombo (1899-1944) and Moisè Vittorio Gentilli (1894-1944), whose lives were intrinsically connected with the village of Mereto di Tomba for approximately fifty years. They were well integrated in the village, as the owners of their grocery shop, which provided the villagers with their essential groceries, including meat. They had an active Jewish life in the nearby synagogue, and they were well respected in the local village, as it appears in the archival documents that we consulted. Probably influenced by the arising controversial fascist regime’s propaganda, they moved to Venice in 1930 before being brutally arrested in 1943 in Olgiate Comasco while trying to escape to Switzerland. They were later deported from Fossoli di Carpi to Auschwitz on February 22, 1944, together with five other close relative members and the well-renowned author, and Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi. The Gentilli family never came back to their home. May their memory be a blessing.

In the aftermath of putting together this fragmented and powerful story, the question remains about how a local Council could effectively recount this today to their local community after eight decades of blind indifference. Using a creative way, we connected an historical lecture about these people to the music, literature, illustrative and contemporary symbolic arts. The historian and professor Valerio Marchi and I were able to give back this freshly rebuilt biography on January 21, 2024, in Mereto di Tomba in an official and well-planned ceremony held in the local Town Hall in Mereto di Tomba. We then installed two Stolpersteines in their perpetual memory opposite to their latest home and hundreds of people attended this event with curiosity, respect, and genuine interest. 

Davide Merello, an emergent Italian artist, also remarkably illustrated five places important to their lives (San Daniele del Friuli, Mereto di Tomba, Padua, Venice, and Jerusalem), later printed as postcards with a list of thirty books to explore further Italian Jewish life.

We also involved Umbertina Gentilli, 93, who is one of the latest witnesses of those dark times in Udine and who interacted with dozens of Italian teenagers in a beautiful exchange of letters and art works. Last April, a consistent group of teenagers was also able to meet with the Rabbi of Venice, Rav Sermoneta, and discover the presence of Jewish life in the famous city built on water. The same Gentilli family used to live there in the 30ies, ironically, Venice was also the first city on earth to formally establish a Ghetto in 1516.

The Gentilli family legacy preserved

And this story is not finished yet. Next year we will install the remaining four Stolpersteines in Trieste as a reminder of the other family members. We will expand the local library by offering a meaningful list of basic books to assist the community in better understanding Jewish life, and we will continue to connect generations in order to build awareness, knowledge, and education.

The story of this family, revealed again after decades of unforgivable indifference, started from a wooden Aron ha-Kodesh which sits in an unknown corner of the capital city of Israel. Who knows how many other small and big stories could be revealed? May their memory be a blessing to all.

Denis Passalent is originally from Udine. He is a Secondary School Teacher and is based in Melbourne, Australia.