Miriam Dell’Ariccia, my mother, was born in 1941, so she was only a toddler during World War II, but she still has memories of her days in hiding and the sound of German soldiers talking and their boots pounding.
Her grandfather, Rav Marco Vivanti, worked in the offices of the Comunità Ebraica di Roma (Roman Jewish community) and witnessed, on 29th September 1943, the raid by German officers who impounded a multitude of documents, including all the registers containing the names and addresses of the Jews in Rome. That same day, his daughter Enrica went to pick him up from work and happened to meet a Jewish refugee from Poland. This woman told my great-aunt what was happening to the Jews in the rest of occupied Europe, how the Germans had collected registers and then deported and murdered all the Jews, and she urged her to hide as soon as possible.
