Italy has ever been a nation of emigrants. It wasn’t just the working classes who went abroad to find jobs, it was the professional ones too. Just to take Lucca and its fabulous composers: Luigi Boccherini sought his fortune in the Spanish court and Francesco Geminiani found fame with the English aristocracy. Today the Italian tradition in the UK cultural scene continues with such persons as Gabriele Finaldi, director of the National Gallery, and Antonio Pappano at the Royal Opera House.
In London I am constantly surprised at the number of young Italians working there: it’s a rare bus ride in that city where one doesn’t hear some Italian spoken. The good thing is that they are not all working on zero hour contracts but have been able to obtain prestigious jobs in finance, commerce and, naturally, catering.
The obverse is also true: for example, the head of Italy’s great Brera Gallery in Milan is James Bradbourne, born in Canada but a British citizen.
That’s why, of course, this Brexit nonsense is so hopeless and retrograde: a sign that an outdated colonial attitude still infiltrates the minds of too many English. As for those British emigrants (note: emigrants – not ‘expats’) to such places as our own Bagni di Lucca, and who still believe they voted ‘out’ correctly, I can only suggest that (unless they have since repented of their ill-informed choice) they are either unhinged or else totally without regard to the younger generation who, thinking about their future, overwhelmingly voted to remain within the European Community.
Sadly, the attitude of those persons reflects a similar attitude which permeated the background to the ‘Arandora Star’ tragedy. This was a British cruise liner requisitioned for war purposes. Loaded with Italian and German civilian internees on their way to camps in Canada, the liner was sunk off the Irish coast by a torpedo, launched by the U-47 enemy submarine under the command of Gunther Prien, on the 2nd of July 1940 with the loss of 865 lives of which 446 were Italian and 13 from our area of Garfagnana,
This tragic incident has inspired writer Caterina Soffici to write a novel to be presented on Monday 19th February at 11 am in the Great Hall of Castelnuovo di Garfagnana’s Istituto Superiore di Istruzione. “Nessun puo’ fermarmi” (‘Nobody can stop me’) is published by Feltrinelli with a historical introduction by Pietro Luigi Biagioni of the Paolo Cresci Foundation.
The novel begins with the casual discovery of a letter shedding new light on the disappearance of her grandfather, believed dead in action during the Second World War. The search for the truth leads the protagonist to discover the real cause of death: the sinking of the Arandora Star.
Those who drowned were innocent victims of suspicion and xenophobia: they had lived in the United Kingdom for years and many were second or even third generation. Yet all were considered aliens, even spies, and a threat to a country at war.
I can only imagine what these people must have felt when they were arrested for being ‘aliens’ and interned. It’s not surprising that something of the same fear permeates Italian and other European Union citizens living in the UK at the present time. To wake up after years of living in a country which seemed so open-hearted, in which one had a career, raised a family, a place one truly loved, and then suddenly feel unwanted, unwelcomed, uncertain of what may happen to one’s status; indeed to feel betrayed, as the result of a referendum which imposed a ‘will of the people’, using, incidentally, the same word as Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 film ‘Triumph Des Willens‘ which extolled the Nazi credo.
(The Will of the People?)
This is, indeed, what has happened, since the June 2016 Brexit referendum, to EU citizens who have made their life in the UK. (In this respect, “In Limbo: Brexit testimonies from EU citizens in the UK” by Elena Remigi, is an essential read: a book of testimonies from those who now feel in limbo in the UK).
It’s also useful and educational to visit the Paolo Cresci museum of the history of Italian emigration in Lucca, situated to the right of the ducal palace in Piazza Napoleone.
Well set-out in a former chapel, the museum guides one through photographs and objects from the emigrants’ moment of departure through to the arrival in foreign lands and describes their difficulties and dangers. What is especially poignant is the fact that this is one place where a memorial to the victims of the ‘Arandora Star’ is found:
The museum is part of the Paolo Cresci foundation which has a significant archive relating to emigration and also publishes a monthly bulletin. Full details are available at http://www.fondazionepaolocresci.it/.
