VERCELLI – Mario Pollarolo turned 100

Born in 1925, Mario Pollarolo is the historical memory of the Jewish Community of Vercelli in the Piedmont region. His memory spans a century, as yesterday Mariulìn, as his friends call him, turned 100 years old. “We had a great party, and he even received a certificate from the Claims Conference to celebrate ‘his extraordinary life of heroism and resilience after the Shoah,’” explained Rossella Bottini Treves, president of the Jewish Community of Vercelli.
Mario, the son of Maria Sacerdote, from Vercelli, has lived for many years in Asigliano Vercellese. Born in the former Jewish ghetto of Vercelli, he attended the Levi kindergarten and witnessed the events surrounding the local 19th-century synagogue. It was there, in the 1930s, that he celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. “What an emotion that day; there was Rabbi Ugo Massìach and us kids. We sang both at the Levi kindergarten and in the temple. At the Simchat Torah celebration, we would circle around the Tevàh (the pulpit),” he told Bottini Treves, who is collecting his memories. Mario also recalls other moments related to communal life, like the smell of “apple fritters cooked by the rabbi’s wife. And for Passover, the matzah was baked in the basement of the Levi Kindergarten. For the children, sugar was added to make Masòd nasiròd.” Another food-related memory, tied to the customs of the Vercelli Jewish community, is a bit hazy: “Some spoke of a tradition where boys who learned the psalms well were given collandar, the confetti.”
Pollarolo has shared with the president several testimonies from the time of fascism and the war. With his help, the first Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) were laid in Vercelli between 2023 and 2024. It was his century-long memory, along with documentary research, that identified the homes of those deported.