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Winter 1942-1943: Elia and Sara Gesses walk hand in hand in Piazza Insurrezione
Elia Gesses was born in Odessa (presently Belarus) on November 8th, 1898. Shimon Jesses and Feiga Gragizkj were his parents.
His family moved towards the centre-southern Europe to escape from the pogroms taking place in the Russian lands at the end of the 19th century. In the early twenties, Elia went to Trieste with the aim of embarking on a steamer bound to the USA. Yet, there he met and fell in love with Ada Ancona. The young couple then moved to Padua and lived at 18, via Roma. They had two daughters: Lisa, born in 1922 and Sara in 1937.
Elia had become an Italian citizen and had fitted into society in Padua.
You can see him, his daughter Sara and Ada, just behind them, in Piazza Insurrezione, in Padua. The photo does not have a date, but it should refer to the winter between 1942 and 1943: just a few months before the whole family was interned at Villa Venier and deported to the Nazi’s concentration camps, where they were killed. Lisa, who succeeded in hiding until the end of the war, was the only survivor.
On the back of this photo, we read that the little black strip on his coat is in memory of his father’s death.
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