Reunited after 81 years: Holocaust survivor meets descendants of family who saved her

After 81 years, the veil of history has lifted, reuniting 86-year-old Gertrude “Trudy” Stricks with the family who saved her from the Holocaust, Rome-based newspaper Il Messaggero has reported.

This extraordinary discovery was made possible through the efforts of Maria Grazia Lancellotti, principal of the Roman high school Orazio and a participant in the project “Il Civico Giusto,” the report said.

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Trudy and her son, Brian, recently connected with the descendants of Alfredo and Marcella Monaco, the couple who rescued her from certain death during the Holocaust.

For decades, it was believed that Gertrude had perished in Auschwitz. Her name surfaced only in connection with her father, Isidor Stricks, whose tragic fate was marked by the chilling note: “died in a lager” (a Nazi concentration camp). These sparse records reinforced the assumption that young Gertrude had shared the same fate, as extermination camps claimed the most vulnerable first.

Yet Gertrude’s destiny diverged from that of her father. Isidor Stricks, a Polish Jew, fled to Italy from France but was captured near Rome. He was eventually deported and died in the Mauthausen concentration camp. Before his deportation, he managed to pass his five-year-old daughter to Marcella Ficca, an unknown woman standing near the truck carrying him away.

Hidden from the Holocaust

In February 1944, Marcella, who did not speak Polish, took young Trudy under her wing, despite their inability to communicate verbally. Marcella and her husband, Alfredo Monaco, a night doctor at Rome’s Regina Coeli prison, welcomed Trudy into their family, which already included two children. The Monacos were no strangers to courage; they had previously assisted in the daring escapes of prominent Italians Sandro Pertini and Giuseppe Saragat.

Trudy stayed with the Monaco family until June 1944, during which time they sheltered her from the horrors of the Holocaust. Her mother, Fanny Stricks, unaware of her husband’s fate, eventually learned of Trudy’s whereabouts from Rome’s Jewish community. She retrieved her daughter, and the pair sought refuge in a convent, where they lived for a month.

In July 1944, they joined nearly 1,000 other refugees aboard the ship Gibbons, departing Naples and eventually reaching the United States.

Trudy settled in the US and now has a son, Brian. At 86, her survival is a testament to the acts of solidarity and chance that shaped countless lives during those inhuman years.

Alfredo and Marcella Monaco never stopped searching for Trudy, but they died without knowing whether she had survived. Their heroism is now being formally recognized, as Yad Vashem has initiated procedures to honor them with the title of “Righteous Among the Nations,” Il Messaggero reported.

Lancellotti, who came across Trudy’s story while researching the Monaco family, helped reconnect Trudy with their descendants. The project “Il Civico Giusto” focuses on uncovering acts of solidarity and courage in fascist Italy during the era of racial laws. These stories offer glimpses of humanity and beauty during one of history’s darkest periods.

“A small justice has also been done for Isidor Stricks,” Lancellotti said. While records show that Isidor perished in Mauthausen rather than Auschwitz, at least a place of remembrance exists for him.