An exhibition on a Roman bus tells the story of a 12-year-old boy who escaped Nazi deportation 80 years ago by hiding in a tram.
Emanuele Di Porto, now 92, rode a tram for two days in October 1943 to avoid deportation from a Jewish neighborhood of Rome, with sympathetic conductors feeding and caring for him.
The exhibition, which is on a bus, is part of the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of when German troops arrested nearly 1,200 individuals from the city’s small Jewish community during World War II.
On October 16, 1943, Di Porto’s mother pushed him off a truck that was deporting Roman Jews to Nazi death camps in northern Europe.
He reached a nearby tram stop, got on and told the ticket keeper what had happened.
For two days, he slept and ate on the tram, with drivers taking turns bringing him food.
“During the two days I rode the tram, I didn’t see anything. I always think about my mother,” Di Porto told The Associated Press.
He never saw his mother again, but was reunited with his father, who avoided arrest because he was working in another area that morning, and his siblings after a train rider recognized him.
Emanuele Di Porto was 12 years old when he escaped Nazi deportation on a tram. AP Di Porto’s mother pushed him off the truck that took them to the death camp.AP He rode the bus for two days and the driver fed and cared for him, until he was reunited with his father and siblings. AP
Residents and visitors to the Italian capital can take a bus — which takes the same route as Di Porto does — that bypasses Rome’s main synagogue.
Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri said that October 16 marked “one of the most tragic events in the history of this city, in the history of Italy.”
Only 16 deported Roman Jews survived the Nazi death camps.
By Postal Wire
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
