The Child of the Tram

Isabella Labate

It was a Saturday at dawn. Rome was still sleeping, but was awakened by truck engines, the rustle of uniforms and the tinkling of badges. Emanuele also wakes up and sees his mother on the street, someone is pushing her onto a truck. He runs to her, and like everyone else, he gets pushed onto the truck. Then he feels a kick in the back that knocks him down. He starts running, this time to get far away from his mother. He ends up on a tram, the controller sits him down, offers him food, a blanket, shelter, and safety. They are both afraid. Emanuele spends days on that tram, days when he is alone, days when he becomes “invisible”: everyone knows, but no one “notices” him. Until it’s all over. The invisible child is saved and can finally return home to his father.

Emanuele still lives in that same house and tells us how on October 16, 1943 his life was saved by his mother who pushed him out of the truck, and the tram drivers who took care of him. Emanuele’s mother was called Virginia Piazza, she was deported to Auschwitz Birkenau along with 1,024 Jews, of whom over 200 were children.