As a girl in Fiume, meetings with Palatucci

Author: Rosanna Turcinovich Giuricin

Meira Moise, born in Cherso on 3 October 1923 to Francesco Moise di Cherso (7 December 1885) and Pulcheria Missetich (Ragusa, 24 December 1889), celebrated her third degree with her friends from her course at the University of Verona. “The years don’t matter – say her lively blue eyes – I feel like one of them”. We meet her in her home in a small town in Veneto where her classmates, whom she helps with their degree theses, meet. There is almost a sort of modesty in speaking with her about the past, projected as she is into the events of the present and ready to imagine future scenarios full of ideas and serious commitments. But we are here to talk about Fiume, at the suggestion of Fulvio Mohoratz, the city that welcomed her as a girl and where she had the opportunity to frequent, every morning, the same church as Palatucci. How it was? “A handsome man, elegant, he stood out.” But how did she get to Rijeka from her native Cres? “I got there after an intermediate stage. In 1934, in fact, I moved to Zadar to attend the lower gymnasium, I was 11 years old. It was a beautiful, compact city with a wonderful shore. Along the main street (the promenade) all the students gathered under the watchful eye of the adults. They came from Sebenico, from Split, from Ragusa and from the rest of Dalmatia, scions of wealthy families who wanted an Italian culture for themselves, that of their belonging. I remember Ottavio Missoni, my classmate, who failed a lot. When we meet he insists that I have multiple degrees and I reply that he has become rich and famous, we are even. Then I was also in class with Enzo Bettiza, another excellent Dalmatian, he was very good at school. Ottavio, on the other hand, was conspicuous by his absences, we found him at the stadium. With Mussolini we all had to be good sportsmen. I also did running, javelin throwing, a bunch of activities because on our Saturdays there were no alternatives.” From a cultural point of view, what did Zara offer in those years? “A lot, but we lived mostly through school, which was very serious, not like today. The professors, too, were made of a different stuff, special people. I recently phoned one of my philosophy professors who is still alive, he is 97 years old, he writes books, he gives conferences. He was moved to hear that an 88-year-old student still remembers him. My mother, on the other hand, frequented a very elegant women's club where she went to discuss various topics, they were very busy." How do you remember the passage to Fiume? “I arrived by steamer. The shore was not as beautiful as that of Zadar and the city of Rijeka itself, in my opinion, could not compete. It had a different charm determined by the movement of a commercial city, open to the world, large. Zadar was a small, intimate, pretty city, where everyone knew each other, so Rijeka seemed colder and more distant to me. But once I became familiar with the environment, everything became simpler and more immediate." How did you meet Palatucci? “I went to mass at the church of San Vito every day. My friend Nuccia from Milan and I attended mass and every day we saw this beautiful young man who participated in the service with great devotion. We didn't know it was Giovanni Palatucci. So we asked around and learned that it was him, the Police Chief. Much later I was able to know and also understand everything he had done, because he had a real love for people. If someone goes to church every day but cannot love others, then it means that he has not understood anything about existence. I saw him, in the very first pews of the church of San Vito, then I learned of his deep faith that led him to spend himself for others. There was a lot of talk about him, both among the high school students and especially among my university classmates, he didn't go unnoticed." You often refer to the sense of deep faith, what do you mean? “I intend to live the Gospel in the reality of life. Faith is loving others, otherwise it is an empty concept. Faith must be lived. The Gospel is not meant to be read, but to be put into practice. These are Jesus' words on the Testament. Whoever understands it, lives it. I think that Palatucci saw Christ in the other. And the Jews who suffered are grateful to him. In Israel they have a beautiful garden where each tree represents a person who did good to the Jewish people, one is dedicated to him, to this incredible man who I would have liked to have met personally. Then life, however, still in Fiume, made me meet Father Quattrocchi and this determined a turning point in my existence. He passed away recently at the age of almost one hundred, the son of the Beltrame – Quattrocchi couple who were beatified by John Paul II. He had given a conference in Fiume and I was enormously impressed, he spoke about love like I had never heard of it. My mother had given me a terrifying image of God by telling me “He will burn you in hell or he will be good to you!”. So I started going to Mass because I needed to confirm this capacity for unconditional love. My mother was scared of it. I went to church for the first mass in the morning, at six o'clock, that's why I met Palatucci, at that time he was there". How much has your openness towards others helped you in life? “Having reached the end of the line I can affirm that faith is everything. I wish I could shout it out because those who have no faith have not lived. Faith helps to overcome great pain. I had a lot with the war and the years that followed, but I made it.” Why did you decide to go back to study? “I felt the need to do it, to pick up the books again. I enrolled at university, I chose philosophy. I started attending and it was a wonderful experience. I eventually got my second degree and then my third, in Philosophical Sciences, which complements the other one. The director of the secretariat suggested that I enroll in medicine but I fear that I would fail the entrance test, with all that physics and economics that there is. But I would like to.” Where did he teach? A bit everywhere. In Cherso, in Fiume where I also taught in middle school and at the same time in Sussak, then in Gorizia for 6 years and then always in Verona. I also taught catechism for sixty-two years. I've always been among the young. Many criticize them but in reality young people possess many qualities. They are good, generous, open. They accepted me, even though I am very old, as if I were a beautiful twenty-year-old girl, as equals. They have a lot to give, maybe we need to know how to understand them." What relationship did you maintain with Cherso and Fiume? “I return to Cres once a year, even for a whole month. On the other hand, I haven't seen Fiume in ages. In Cres I know everyone and everyone knows me. I still have some of my classmates from elementary school alive and so we meet to talk, to go back in time. Then they come looking for me as soon as I arrive. They are very affectionate, they invite me to lunch and dinner, they show me in a thousand ways the affection they feel for me. And I am happy that Croatia is joining Europe. From the point of view of faith they are brothers and I think that seeing them in the right light is the best way to overcome ancient divisions. Joining Europe means changing many things, starting with the currency. But also re-evaluate the cultural aspects. There are many people from Chersini, for example, who have given a lot in the field of literature, philosophy, and music, like Father Lizzi, who made some great discoveries. Abbot Moise, my ancestor, was also an excellent grammarian of the nineteenth century and was a friend of Carducci. Instead, they tend to save only Francesco Patrizi, on whom I also wrote my thesis, underlining the fact that he was a naturalist, who managed to insert himself in a difficult period such as that of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation through an intelligent way, without getting involved, unlike others such as Giordano Bruno who was burned alive”. Why do you think an environment like Cherso has managed to produce a character of this caliber? Because he came from one of the most prominent families in Cres at the time. His surname was Petris, Patrizio clearly derived from Latin, and he belonged to one of the oldest and most prominent noble families. They were also distant relatives of mine. The family was present on the island since 1300 and was born in 1529, it is not true that they arrived from Bosnia in 1460. There is evidence near my house where there is a little church where the dead of their family were buried and the little church is from 1300. What is current in Francesco Patrizi's thought? “There is his perennial idea of ​​building a happy city. He talks about it a lot and the work where he theorizes all this is a work that fascinated me a lot. Meanwhile he imagines it along the sea because he is convinced that a city can only be happy if it is close to the sea and close to a gulf so that its defense is easier. He then says that the happy city should think first of all about the well-being and health of its citizens. He emphasizes health because he says that a healthy man is capable of giving a lot to the city. Divide society into categories. The first is that of farmers who have to sow, manage the land, and produce bread. Being able to give the “right” food to citizens. At the same time, it reflects the nature of our people. At the age of nine, his family made him interrupt his studies to send him to sail with his uncle along the Mediterranean. They wanted to make him a seaman, a sailor. At 15, however, he landed in Venice and resumed his studies of grammar, Latin and Greek even though, according to his father, he should have studied medicine. Instead he chose Letters. In his writings, however, he always remembers the sea, that period in which, together with his uncle, he saw many places and met many different people. Well, for him the sea is an important note in his life, as in mine and in the lives of those like us."