“Gli Ingliesi son arrivati!”
Shouts coming from the street penetrate our crowded dark dust and soot covered basement cellar where I wait, nervously, with my sister and parents.
We look at each other through quiet eyes, too scared to make a sound.
“Gli Inglesi son arrivati! Gli Inglesi son arrivati!” echoes down to us again.
Small boys yell through streets where, just moments ago, German troops funneled through, on their way to battle.
Could it be a trick?
I look at my father.
His eyes reveal nothing in the almost pitch blackness of our cellar.
A streak of light flashes across his shadowed face from the crack in the wall revealing the sun-soaked day beyond our little make-shift bunker.
“GLI INGLESI SON ARRIVATI!”
They are nearby, it’s getting louder.
Straining my body so I may place my face next to my father’s, I ask in a whisper “What do you think?”
His eyes dart toward me.
Then, without a word, his head nods up ever so slightly; almost imperceptible in the darkness.
I head his order.
Without thinking because thinking would make me not want to do this, I begin to rise.
Moving my body toward the stairway, I step gingerly, hoping to make as little sound as possible as I peak my head out from the cellar entrance.
Could the English really be here?
Could the Germans really be gone?
As I creep up the stairs I see a man in a dark brown uniform crouching behind a makeshift barricade just beyond the cellar entrance.
A BRITISH SOLDIER!
Turning back to my parents and sister, I motion toward the soldier, whispering “Inglesi!”
Smiles rush to their faces.
We’re saved!
Just as I turn back to look again the soldier also turns, revealing a blue six-sided star on his left shoulder.
He is a Jew!
I gingerly rise out of the cellar, keeping my eyes on the soldier.
Perhaps I can connect with him, even though I do not speak English.
What would he know?
As I rise above the cellar, I begin humming the first few bars of Hatikvah, a popular Jewish poem turned to song I learned before the war.
“Daa Da Da Daaa Daaa Daa Daa Daa Da Daaaa”
He eyes me instantly, initially raising his rifle, then lowering it as I rise.
He begins humming along.
A shot rings out in the distance, which doesn’t phase him.
I flinch, but keep up the tune.
Together we hum “Daa Da Da Daaa Daaa Daaa Daa Daa Da Da Daaaa ”
After the first few bars the soldier begins talking to me in English.
I look at him, lost.
He keeps going, not recognizing I do not speak English until I begin humming again.
“Daa Da Da Daaa Daaa Daa Daa Daa Da Daaaa”
Then he stops.
My father rises from the cellar, saying something in yiddish I do not understand.
The soldier responds in yiddish.
They can speak to each other!
This English soldier and my Italian father, speaking yiddish, chat to each other as bullets crackle in the distance.
My father smiles, laughs, reaches out his arms, and hugs the soldier.
Other British soldiers begin peering out of crevices and from other street barricades.
They all have blue six-sided stars on their arms.
We are liberated by fellow Jews!
The shots become less frequent as the hugs and cheers grow.
Yiddish rushes forth from mouth to mouth as the soldiers talk with my dad.
I sit down next to the soldier, I first saw, looking up at him in awe.
Can this be how our war ends?
My father looks down at me, a smile on his face.
Yes.
Many Italian civilians were caught up in the battles to liberate Italy from the Italian Fascists and Germans during World War II. Among these civilians were a good number of Jews. In one instance, being Jewish is what enabled an Italian family to connect with a British soldier of the Jewish Brigade, as the Brigade liberated part of Florence. As quoted from Road to Valor by Aili McConnon:
On Via del Bandino, it was announced by hopeful shouting of local boys, “Gli inglesi son arrivati!” “The English have arrived!” Sitting in the cellar with his parents and sister, Giorgio Goldenberg crept cautiously out to investigate. He was startled to see a British soldier standing right on the street beside his building. On the soldier’s shoulder, he saw a Star of Daivd. Giorgio didn’t speak any English, but wanted desperately to communicate with this man whom he recognized as an ally. So he started singing, at first quietly and then loud enough so that the solder could hear him. He sang the melody of the Hatikvah, a popular Hebrew song that would later become the national anthem of Israel.
The solder recognized the song and burst forth in an excited flurry of English that Giorgio did not understand. Giorgio dashed downstairs to find his father and bring him to street level. His father and the soldier began to speak together in Yiddish. Giorgio watched them happily, a feeling of relief washing over him for the first time in years. “For me, this was the end of the war,” he said later.
Hatikvah later became the national anthem for the newly founded state of Israel.
