Franco Cesana (20 September 1931 – 14 September 1944) was an Italian Jew, born in the northern city of

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

. His father was Felice, and his mother was Ada Basevi. Franco had two brothers: Ermanno, born in 1918, and Lelio, born in 1920. The family moved to Roma, then to Bologna. In 1938

Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...

's "racial laws" were introduced and Franco was expelled from public school, and had to go instead to a "Jewish school" jury-rigged in a local

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...

. He did not understand why he had to leave his friends just because he was Jewish. His father died in 1939 and he moved in with relatives. Soon after Mussolini was overthrown, the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

invaded Italy, and Italian Jews had to go into hiding or be sent to the concentration camps. The Cesana family hid in the Apennine Mountains, next to Modena. Franco's family had to move from hut to hut in the mountains in order to evade the German soldiers. Franco, who was twelve at the time, joined one of the

Justice and Liberty Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...

partisan Partisan may refer to: Military * Partisan (weapon), a pole weapon * Partisan (military), paramilitary forces engaged behind the front line Films * ''Partisan'' (film), a 2015 Australian film * ''Hell River'', a 1974 Yugoslavian film also know ...

group with his brother Lelio. Their group was ''brigata Scarabelli''. Not much later, on 14 September 1944, he was shot by Germans on a scouting mission in the mountains, next to Gombola, and his body was returned to his mother on his thirteenth birthday. He received the bronze medal in memory.

References

1931 births 1944 deaths Jewish resistance members during the Holocaust Italian Jews who died in the Holocaust Italian civilians killed in World War II Child soldiers in World War II {{Italy-bio-stub