After a few minutes, Mayer opened the door and gestured to the safe. “Foà, I have new orders from Colonel Kappler to seize that money. Get a small box and pack it up for me.”
“But it’s ours.” Foà’s lips parted in dismay. “We collected it in response to his demand for gold.”
Sandro’s father interjected, “Captain Mayer, you have no legal basis for taking Community property. You called it a seizure, but it’s common robbery, a criminal act.”
Mayer glared at him. “Such defiance! I’ll report you to Colonel Kappler, Simone.”
Sandro cringed, terrified for his father. “Captain Mayer,” he blurted out, “my father is a lawyer and he’s only trying to protect the Community.”
“Captain Mayer, please, I’ll comply.” Foà quickly picked up a box of correspondence from his desk, but Mayer grabbed it from him and dumped the letters on the rug.
“Get out, we’ll do it!” Mayer motioned them out again, and they stood aside as he barked orders to his soldiers, who fetched more boxes and began emptying the contents of Foà’s office.
As the morning wore on, Captain Mayer and the Nazi soldiers loaded the Community’s papers, files, minutes books, financial ledgers, and other property onto the covered trucks in the piazza. Sandro, his father, Foà, Rosina, and families on the piazza, among them Sandro’s mother and Rosa, watched in horrified silence.
It struck him that tonight was Rosh Hashanah, and the Jewish New Year 5704. He had hoped things would be better.
Now, he feared they would be worse.
* * *
—
Later, Sandro huddled with his parents and Rosa around the kitchen table, having finished a meager lunch of spaghetti with diluted pomodoro sauce. Sandro felt disturbed after seeing the Nazis vandalize his synagogue, a sacred house of worship. He hated that there was nothing anyone could do to stop the Nazis, in any way. If the Fascists had ruined the Ghetto Jews, the Nazis intended to destroy them.
Rosa shook her head. “I have to say, after seeing those tanks, I’m frightened for our lives, truly. We should go into hiding. We know people who can help us, like Emedio and Monsignor O’Flaherty.”
“You think so?” Sandro asked, uncertain.
“Yes, absolutely. Others have, even Chief Rabbi Zolli. Why don’t we? This could be our last chance.”
“Well.” Sandro’s father sighed, his expression gravely troubled. “I admit, what I saw today opened my eyes. The Nazis . . . enjoyed vandalizing the synagogue. That excuse about the radio was a pretext to terrorize us and steal from us. Greed fueled them, but so did hatred. I always thought that we’d be safe in Rome, but I never anticipated that the Nazis would occupy us. I’m sorry, I should have.” His father glanced at his mother, then back at Sandro and Rosa. “You two should know that your mother and I have been talking. We think it would be prudent for both of you to go into hiding.”
“What?” Rosa recoiled. “What about you and Mamma?”
“We’re staying here. We place our faith in God.”
Sandro shook his head. “We won’t go without you.”
His mother touched Sandro’s hand. “You can, and you must. I can’t go, and your father feels the same way. But we don’t want to take further risks with you two.”
Rosa touched her hand. “Mamma, you’ll both be trapped here.”
“We’re not trapped here, we’re needed here. I’m the only obstetrician in the Ghetto, and you know that many of my deliveries are complicated these days, by malnutrition and illness. I have a patient who will go into labor any day now, Cecilia from around the corner. It’s her first child, and she’s been sick with pneumonia. I can’t abandon her.”
Rosa frowned. “But after her? Can’t you go then?”
“No, there will be Regina, and Clara. They’re both in their ninth month. There are simply too many women here who need me.”
Sandro turned to his father. “Papa, you, too?”
“I’ll stay with your mother.” His father managed a smile, rallying. “I can’t turn my back when everyone is most in need. So many Jews in the Ghetto lack our advantages. They couldn’t go into hiding, even if they wanted to. They look up to me now. I’ll stay to help Foà and the others—”
“Then we’ll stay, too,” Rosa interrupted him, sounding as determined to stay as she had been to go.
Sandro understood her change of heart. “Yes, we all stay.”