BOOK REVIEW: 'ROAD TO VALOR'

BY JOEL FREEDMAN

Shortly after the Nazi occupation of Italy in September 1943, Italian Maj. Mario Carita and his men ingratiated themselves with the Nazis by zealously pursuing Jews and anti-Fascists and by turning the torture of suspected enemies of the Nazis and Italian Fascists into a grim science. Carita’s headquarters in Florence was known as Villa Triste (House of Sorrow), so named because of the screams of tortured victims emanating from it.

In July 1944, famed bicycle racer Gino Bartali, who had won the Giro d’Italia in 1936 and ’37 and the Tour de France in 1938, had good reason to be worried when he was summoned to appear at Carita’s headquarters. Had Carita learned that Bartali had hidden a Jewish family, had led Jewish refugees toward the Swiss Alps, and that he used his bicycle to carry forged documents that gave fake Christian identities for Jews on frequent arduous bicycle rides between Florence and Assisi? Bartali concealed these documents in the hollow tube under his bicycle’s seat.

Bartali feared not only for himself. He feared that under torture he might betray Luigi and Trento Brizi, a father-and-son team who used their Assisi print shop to manufacture the forged documents; Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa, the archbishop of Florence; the Rev. Rufino Niccacci; and others involved with Jewish rescue endeavors.

Bartali had not revealed to his beloved wife Adriana that he was involved in such endeavors. Nevertheless, would Carita retaliate against Bartali’s family if he broke down under torture?

Aili and Andres McConnon, the sister-brother authors of “Road to Valor,” explain that prior to interrogation, “Most prisoners, including Gino, were first dragged downstairs, to the subterranean cellars. Before their eyes could adjust to the dim shadows, their senses were assaulted by the sour smell of old blood and rancid sweat. Their feet crunched as they walked on the floor soiled with a mix of coal debris and blood. Carita liked to terrify his prisoners in advance of their interrogation, and among the first shocks, as their eyes began to focus on the inferno they found themselves in, was the array of medieval torture tools. There were thick whips, rods of steel, pincers, manacles, not to mention the primitive carpentry tools used to tear off earlobes of recalcitrant victims. In one room was a heavy wooden triangle, where Carita would splay and tie prisoners and then beat them until their flesh hung in bloody ribbons from their bodies. In another area, medical equipment stolen from hospitals was used to administer electric shocks to prisoners.”

This was what Bartali faced when he was led into a room to wait for Carita. Of course, he was petrified. While he waited, he noticed some letters addressed to him that had been placed on a table, which Carita’s squad apparently had intercepted. Bartali wondered how he could possibly respond if these letters had incriminated him for protecting the Goldenberg family or for transporting forged documents.

The authors describe what happened next. “Carita burst through the door. He was a force to behold, with his frog-like mouth and hooded eyelids covering his cold, lizard-green eyes. The major launched into a tirade against the Catholic religion, hoping to provoke the cyclist from the get-go. Gino struggled to stay calm.”

Carita read aloud a letter from the Vatican that thanked Bartali for his “help.” He accused Bartali of sending weapons to the Vatican. Bartali told Carita that “those letters refer to flour, sugar and coffee that I sent to people in need. I didn’t send arms. I don’t even know how to shoot! When I was in the military, my pistol was always unloaded.”

Carita had Bartali thrown into a cell for three days to listen to the screams from prisoners being tortured to secure information or to elicit admissions of guilt. On his third day at Villa Triste, in the interrogation room with Carita and three of his henchmen, Bartali stuck to his honest claim that he never sent weapons to the Vatican. Carita apparently did not know about Bartali’s other activities.

Carita was about to torture Bartali when something amazing happened. One of Carita’s henchmen sided with Bartali. “If Bartali says coffee, flour and sugar, then it was coffee, flour, and sugar. He doesn’t lie.” Bartali looked closely at this interrogator. He then recognized Olesindo Salmi, who had been Bartali’s military supervisor when Bartali was in Italy’s army, and who had permitted Bartali to use a bicycle instead of a scooter to perform his military duties.

As astonished as Bartali was by Salmi’s intervention, he was even more astonished when Carita relented. The authors explain that Bartali’s fame “had certainly helped save his skin, but Carita was also distracted by bigger worries than Gino. The allies were moving closer to Florence by the day.” (Carita would flee from Florence before the liberation. He would travel to northern Italy, where he was killed in May 1945 when Allied soldiers tried to apprehend him.)

After the war, Bartali once again won the Giro d’Italia in 1946 and the Tour de France in 1948. At the age of 40, Bartali stopped racing as a result of road accident injuries.

“Road to Valor” is the first book ever written about Bartali in English and the only book written in any language to explore, in depth, Bartali’s heroism in saving Jewish lives during World War II.

After the war, Bartali did not say much about his endeavors on behalf of Italian Jews. He explained that “If you’re good at a sport, they attach the medals to your shirts and then they shine in some museum. That which is earned by doing good deeds is attached to the soul and shines elsewhere.”

Bartali died on May 5, 2000. In September 2013, 13 years after his death and a year after “Road To Valor” was published, Bartali was recognized posthumously as a “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem for his endeavors to help Jews during World War II.

Space does not allow me to fully explore Bartali’s professional career as a road cyclist. I’ll just quote one excerpt from “Road to Valor” that described the challenges that awaited Bartali when he entered the Tour de France in 1938: “Even the most exuberant recognized there were many reasons to remain cautious. First, there was a question of competitive endurance. With thirty-one stages fit into just twenty-six days, Gino would face a punishing schedule of races. Second, there were the mountains. For the first time in his career, Gino would face both the Alps and the Pyrenees in the same race. Finally, there was the unavoidable issue of distance. At more than 2,740 miles, the Tour was by far the longest race in which Gino had ever competed — and this distance would come just one month after he had raced some 2,300 miles around Italy.”

Thirty years ago, I purchased a 1960s Grand Prix bicycle at a yard sale for $5. I refer to it as “my Cadillac.” With the help of the good people at RV&E Bike and Skate store in Canandaigua, over the decades I have pedaled my bike thousands of miles around Canandaigua. Although I am fond of my bike, I never named it until I read “Road to Valor.” My bike now has a name: Gino, in honor of Gino Bartali.

It was when the authors began studying some of the historic Tour de France greats that they became fascinated by Gino Bartali. They explain that, “In a sport that celebrates endurance, he endured longer than most others, winning the Tour at twenty-four and then again at thirty-four. When we delved deeper and learned about the ways he used his bicycle between those victories — to help save lives during World War II — we discovered how rich and multifaceted his life had been and realized that his story needed to be shared with a much wider audience.”

Aili and Andres McConnon’s “Road to Valor” is a thoroughly researched, inspirational, fast-paced book that achieves all that the authors intended to accomplish.

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