My Maternal Grandfather

Nonno Giulio was born in Milan to Jewish parents. He lost his mother when he was seven years old. I think he grew up in Salò with his father and stepmother, and four younger brothers and sister. He attended a college at Bergamo where he was unhappy and expelled, and also trained as an accountant. I believe that by his own account he was headstrong and fiery. He told me he lived with a girlfriend while a student. I have recounted elsewhere some stories of my grandfather's life:

"It was after the loss of his wife that Silvio Schiff undertook the project in Tripoli, and my grandfather became a boarder at the Collegio Berretta in Salò, a beautiful town on the western shore of Lake Garda. One of his teachers, and his favourite, was Giulia Grana, whom he introduced to his father and whom his father married, probably in 1915. It was at this time that Silvio Schiff converted to Christianity, for his second wife's sake, and my grandfather from this time was also brought up as a Catholic. Silvio and Giulia had four children: Italia, Umberto, Albino and Gino, who was only six months older than my own mother. With the new family, my grandfather seems to have been displaced in his father's and stepmother's affections, and continued his education as a boarder, progressing to the Collegio San Alessandro in Bergamo. At the age of fifteen occurred the drama that is now part of family folklore. He took a young girlfriend to the Politeama Donizetti - some theatre - but without permission. He was punished with six days' solitary confinement, during which time he was brought the same bowl of soup to eat, which he repeatedly rejected. The finale on the sixth day involved him flinging the soup in his 'jailer's' face, leading to his expulsion. His father met him at the railway station and, final humiliation, slapped him across the face. He left home and continued his studies as a day student, taking lodgings with a girlfriend."

He seems to have had a difficult relationship with his father and stepmother. Short in height, he was a handsome man in his youth. I admired him, as he was forceful and decisive, even if at times opinionated. His love affair with my grandmother was typical. She, a woman of humble origin, but of considerable beauty, gave herself to him, and he reciprocated with commitment. His parents' opposition to the relationship meant that there first child, Fausta, was born and died out of wedlock. He relinquished an inheritance, he told us, in return for permission to marry her less than two months before the birth of my mother. He achieved subsequent success in his life completely through his own efforts, becoming an employee of the Bank of Sicily as a result of winning a public competition. The years in Sicily were happy and successful, two children being born there in Catania, to add to my mother born in Gorizia and her sister born in Trieste. The introduction of the Race Laws saw the abandonment of Sicily following his dismissal from his post, and the move to Albania. These were difficult years when my family struggled to survive. When my mother left in 1943 with her mother, brother and two sister to go and stay with family in Gorizia, my grandfather was forced to go into hiding and I Never heard how he managed to make his way from German occupied Albania to German occupied Gorizia. The danger lasted till 1945 and the end of the war in Europe.

My grandfather had to rebuild his life having lost everything, and although he returned to the bank there were barriers and penalties. By this time my grandmother was struggling, her psyche damaged by a lifetime of terrible experiences, but it was in March 1945 that she became pregnant with her last child. About this time the family removed to Milan, living in viale dei Tigli in Cusano Milanino, and it was my father who drove my grandmother to hospital in an army vehicle in January, 1946, when she was in labour.

My grandfather worked for the bank until, I believe, my grandmother's death in May, 1960. I think that following her death he took a post as Finance Manager with Impresit, a large construction company, working on the Kariba dam project, which was in fact completed in 1959, and then on the Aswan dam project. This was constructed between 1960 and 1970. I have a memory that his office was in Khartoum in neighbouring Sudan but this may be wrong. I believe that his secretary here was Nadia Assal, a young Egyptian who had been educated at a French convent school in Cairo, and who became his wife, in a curious sequence of events that, I believe, involved his nominal conversion to Islam, a marriage, a divorce because proper permission had not been sought and received from her father, and marriage. I think that this must have been in 1961, as, the story goes, he flew back to Milan to be greeted at the airport by his children still dressed in black within the one year of full mourning for their mother, to be introduced to his new wife. I think that my grandfather was 55 and Nadia 21. Their son, my half uncle Alaa-el-Dine, was born in Cairo in June, 1962. Their daughter Magda was born two years later in Monza. The shock of his marriage and the unexpected presentation of the fait accompli caused a family rift and the sending of unpleasant letters which he dealt with courteously. I believe it was my mother who made the first signs of acceptance that led to the eventual restoration of some family harmony. To her great credit his wife, known to me as Nonna Nadia, was always accepting and tolerant of her husband's first family, always welcoming my parents to stay, and myself as well.

Not very long before my grandmother's death my grandfather and grandmother moved from their apartment in via Alcuino, in central north west Milan, to a large, new, luxurious villa he had built at Monza on the western side of the town. Here I stayed in about 1965, when I got to know my step grandmother, her own grandmother, my half uncle and half aunt, and my grandfather, who took me with him each day when he went in to his office in Milan, and gave me an allowance so I could explore the city on my own. I would go to his office, where he kept, as I recall a diary of family life, and then go off. I have little recollection of where I went. Once, sitting beside him as he drove his car, he asked me what I thought of his new wife: a difficult question for a sixteen-year old. He was pleased with my reply, when I said that she was like a good wine, that te first taste was pleasing, but that the pleasure grew greater with each sip. I recall his aunt Elsa visiting him at Monza on his birthday on 14th August, and I recall going on holiday with my uncle Sergio, his wife Reine, their young children, my cousins Giulio and Catherina, and I think their young cousin Éric from France. We all camped at Lignano Pineto. We had an outing too to Gorizia where my uncle bought pastries to visit my grandmother's sister zia Maria and her husband zio Nin, then an elderly man who spoke with the help of a device disguised as a pipe because of a laryngectomy. In his youth I believe he was a very active communist. We also drove through Trieste, my first visit to the city that was to become so important to me.

I think that at that time he was already building the large villa at Peschiera that was to be his home in his retirement. I remember driving there alone with him, so he could supervise the construction work. I remember too that the journey was quite terrifying, with a near accident that he avoided by violent turning repeatedly to left and right to decelerate, so that I feigned tiredness and lay down across the back seat. There were then no seat belts. I have a memory of the roof being large inclined planes of concrete slabs awaiting their tiled covering.

It was at the end of this stay that my grandfather generously provided me with a single train ticket to travel back to England, and I, just sixteen years old I think, noticing that the journey allowed unlimited breaks in the itinerary, decided to take full advantage of the opportunity, I stopped in Turin, I stopped in Lyon for several days, where I received hospitality from Mère Claret, a nun at the Cenacle convent in Place de Fourvière. My spoken French was very limited but I survived. I caught trains to town that would be the last to arrive at a particular station and thus spent the night in the waiting room. I visited Bourges, I explored the chateaux of the Loire valley, I paid for a wet shave, I learnt that asking for 'd'eau' was meaningless, once asked for 'de l'eau.'

My grandfather lived at Peschiera with his wife and children, with a large garden that he planted with fruit trees and flowering shrubs, and with the many Dobermann Pinscher dogs bred by his wife. He went daily into Peschiera to collect the post and to have a coffee at his favourite café. When he was seventy he and his wife decided to have a third child, my uncle Samy.

My grandfather received a good education, even if he did not always enjoy it, but it has always surprised me that he never encouraged or financed his children's education. My mother, of course, missed an education because of the war. My uncle Sergio studied at university in Milan when married with children and in full time work. I believe he too worked for Impresit. My uncle Dinosaur (Alla-el-Dine), received his education through his successful career in the Italian Air Force, becoming subsequently an Alitalia pilot. My aunt Magda became a successful journalist through her own efforts. Sami worked hard, through scholarships, to receive his education and to pursue his academic career in neuroscience.

My uncle Sami, although a very late arrival in my grandfather's life, did benefit from a few advantages, mostly that my grandfather lived for another twenty years and was able to spend time with him. It was mostly after his father's death that Sami was able to pursue his studies.

I do remember my grandfather as strong willed and determined. I remember helping him once at his villa, when he asked me to paint the wooden shutters with green gloss paint. I was able to rub them down to remove loose paint, but despite my protestations that they needed some primer and certainly an undercoat, to change from the light colour, he insisted dogmatically that the green gloss would suffice, and despite giving them two coats the finished result was very poor in appearance.

My grandfather was not a lover of literature, art or music, but he was a passionate acquirer of technological gadgets. He was one of the first radio amateurs in Italy, in fact working with Marconi at the beginning of his career. He was a keen photographer with fine Leica cameras. He was an early fan of super eight cine film to make home movies. Although he was nominally Jewish, Christian and Muslim in the course of his life, I don't think he felt a particular allegiance to any one of them, though he did say to me once that he was "the last 100% Jewish member of the family". 

My grandfather always worried about his health, and in extreme old age he did suffer from heart trouble and had a pacemaker fitted. His death eventually came at the age of 91 I believe as the result of a tumour in his chest that restricted his heart. I flew over to Italy to see him before he died, and said goodbye to him at the clinic near Peschiera where he was being nursed. Although I knew he wouldn't see me again he was unconcerned, being much more involved in eating his meal, so the farewell was perfunctory. We had no final farewell or words to share. His funeral was a simple interment in the cemetery at Peschiera without benefit of prayers or ceremony.