Several years ago, while in Florence, I ran across an article about Andreina Morandi Michelozzi, a young woman who was part of the Resistance in Florence in World War II. Her story was extraordinary. She wrote her memoir long after the war in a book called Le Foglie Volano: Appunti per una storia di libertà. Translated, it means The Leaves Fly: Notes on the Story of Freedom. But the book, of course, was in Italian and there was no English translation available. That was the genesis of Gidari Publishing. My cousin and native Florentine, Stefano Gidari, teaches at the Lorenzo di Medici School. Together, we decided to learn more about Andreina and her remarkable story and bring it to English speaking audiences everywhere.
“The Leaves Fly” was one of the code phrases used by the Allies in communicating with a clandestine Partisan radio operation in Florence during the first half of 1944. Andreina’s book introduced us to a group of Resistance fighters who risked everything to provide the Allies with intelligence as they pushed north from Rome. Ultimately, on June 7, 1944, the Nazis raided the apartment where the group was meeting and transmitting. Andreina’s brother who was the radio operator that day was shot and later died of his wounds. The others were sent to Villa Triste, the notorious gestapo interrogation center where they were tortured. Several of the group were executed and others were sent to the camps, but along the way, some managed to escape. Their stories, like Andreina’s, were written in Italian.
But our first translation concerns the group’s primary radio telegrapher – Renato Levi. A Jew from Trieste and former radio operator in the Italian Navy until the racial laws barred his further service. He and another Italian officer were sent by the Allies to Florence in January 1944 to establish the radio link between the Partisans and the Allies. The risk to Renato as a Jew was enormous. But on the day of the raid, he and his cohort were not in the apartment where the transmission was ongoing. They escaped, continued to fight and survived the War. Long after the War – 35 years later – Renato would be accused of betraying the group by a former leader of the Tuscan Resistance.
The accusation was made in the national press but was swiftly rebutted by one of the leading members of the radio operation – Gilda Larocca. She too was tortured, beaten and was on her way to the camps, but she remarkably escaped. She also wrote her memoir, which like the others, is not available in English.
The accusation was terribly painful for Renato and his family. Encouraged by Larocca’s support, Renato’s daughter, Rossella Levi, began to research the history of the incident and discovered the proof that her father not a traitor. Her painstaking research, and her family’s story of survival during the War, was published in Italian in 2021 in her book Fra storia e memoria: Una famiglia ebraica triestina dal 1938 al secondo dopoguerra. It is that book that is our first translation effort as Gidari Publishing. It is now available for purchase on Amazon under the English title: No Act of Betrayal: My Family’s History through World War II, the Resistance in Florence, and Beyond.
In future posts, we will tell the stories of the Partisans, the demise of the radio operation, and the mystery of how the group was discovered. We hope you will enjoy the journey.