NEWS A lost picture finally found

By Paolo Brogi*

It was the one missing picture. And it just came to light thanks to the Stolperstein which was placed in Ancona in memory of Nella Montefiori a few days ago.

The photograph of Nella Montefiori, a teacher from Ancona who hid in Rome after the racial laws were issued and was then captured by German soldiers in via Cola di Rienzo on the morning of 16th October 1943, was missing both within the memorial of the Shoah in Rome and among the faces of the deportees of that same day. Nella, who was 38 years old at the time, was with her sister Ada, who managed to escape capture. Nella is one of the women immediately sent to the gas chambers upon arriving at the extermination camp. A Stolperstein to commemorate her had already been placed in via del Tritone 46 in Rome last year, but there were no photographs left of her.

The new Stolperstein placed in via Goito 2 in Ancona, one among seven which were installed on 24th January on the initiative of Marche’s Regional Council, has now led to the appearance of a picture of Nella.

Her niece Anna received it from a lady from Ancona, whose daughter had alerted her after reading on local newspapers the names of the victims who were dedicated a Stolperstein. The lady owns some more photographs and letters as a result of her aunt’s relationship with Ada Montefiori, and they will soon be sent to Nella’s niece.

Here is compensation for the remembrance of this victim, both from the past and the present.

Translated by Claudia Azzalini and revised by Mattia Stefani, both students at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators of Trieste University and interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities.