16 October 1943. Story of Emanuele who escaped the roundup of the Rome ghetto by getting on a tram

Emanuele Di Porto was only 12 years old when, thanks to his mother, he managed to escape the roundup in the Rome ghetto. He found refuge on a tram, where he remained for two days, protected and fed by the tram driver, the conductor and their colleagues. It was October 16, 1943, eighty years ago. Emanuele Di Porto is one of the very few people still alive who survived the roundup, carried out by a selected unit of the German SS, in the Rome ghetto, deporting 1024 people: men, women and children of all ages.

His story is told in two books released this year: **A tram for life **by Tea Ranno published by Piemme e 16 October 1943. Story of Emanuele who escaped Nazism, by the cartoonist Ernesto Anderle with the historian Marco Caviglia published by Mondadori. The author of the first explains: «I chose to tell the story of Emanuele Di Porto because it is a story of hope: “Among a thousand trains crashed to death”, I said to myself when I listened to Emanuele’s story, “there was a tram that brought a child to vita”, and this seemed to me to be an excellent reason to write it”. The second has a preface by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella who, on this October 16th, at the end of the Remembrance March from the Capitol to the ghetto, will lay a laurel wreath along the wall of the synagogue. In both books it is the protagonist who speaks.

Emanuele Di Porto lived all his life in that house from which his family members were taken away at the crossroads between Piazza Mattei and Via della Reginella. In that house he lived with his family and that of his mother’s sisters, in great poverty. He always remembered that the night before, Friday, he had been with his mother at the cinema, an event for him.

He spoke about those days several times. Her mother had gone out at dawn to warn her husband, who was at Termini station where she was selling souvenirs, of the arrival of the Germans. Phe thought they only wanted to take the men and wanted to warn him not to return, but to go to relatives in Testaccio where he thought he would be safe. Emanuele, with his brothers, was home. Their mother had told them not to move.

When the woman returns home it is just after five in the morning. She arrives in Piazza Mattei and is loaded onto a truck. Emanuele sees everything from the window, calls her and comes down to try to save her. “I got it into my head that I wanted to save my mother, I saw her inside her truck: I ran towards her and she immediately scolded me, telling me to go away in our jargon.” However, a soldier sees him and charges at him, but his mother manages to throw him down. «Mom gave birth to me twice: when she gave birth to me and when she saved me from the truck».

The first salvation comes from the mother’s gesture, the second Emanuele builds it himself. He starts walking, moves away from the ghetto. He sees other trucks, recognizes people, continues walking. He arrives at Piazza Monte Savello where at the time there was the tram terminus. He gets on a vehicle and tells the conductor that he is Jewish. The man makes him sit next to him and feeds him. «A loaf of bread with an omelette that I remember like it was yesterday». He will remain on that tram for two days, kept safe by ticket collectors and tram drivers.

On the third morning a family friend gets on the tram and tells him that his father is looking for him. «He takes me home and, when dad sees me arrive, he can’t ask us: he cries». The wife, Virginia Piazza, will never return. Died in Auschwitz. They will find out from a surviving neighbor Settimia Spizzichino, one of the 16 people who returned, the only woman. Emanuele helps the family by working as a street vendor after his father falls into depression. «Life has taught me to never give up in the face of difficulties, no matter how insurmountable they may seem» says Di Porto whose thoughts go to the present. As in the poster of the event: «We remember the past because we care about the future».