natural functions

We know these little horrors all too well, from sports events to any other mass gathering.  Temporary “porta-potties” are absolutely great when you’re desperate and there is nothing else.  That’s about the only great thing about them.  Here large numbers of the typical “chemical toilets” are being unloaded a few steps beyond the finish line of the annual Venice Marathon.  They are there for the obvious needs of thousands of runners just minutes after they arrive.  And yet, there are none conveniently placed for the spectators.  That seems wrong to me, now that I think about it.
But then again, useful as they are, it would deface the landscape to have them around all the time.
What if there were a public toilet permanently available? One that wasn’t a pungent plastic box?  I wasn’t asking myself that question when I was crossing the canal in front of the Arsenal a few weeks ago, but then I saw this kiosk beside the Naval Museum.  What ho, I thought.  Do I see the letters WC?
I do indeed, and the red hints that it is being used.   The experimental loo arrived on February 10, in the throes of Carnival, and installed most conveniently on the fondamenta along which many spectators heading to the show at the Arsenal were bound to be walking.  That extra spritz or beer?  Normally you would have had to plan ahead to deal with the result, because there are very few bars along the way (maybe you don’t know this yet, dear visitor, but you might soon).  This seems very civilized.  The kiosk will be here for two weeks, or till Feb. 24.  Or perhaps Feb. 29.  In any case, a very short time.  Disclaimer: Hygien Venezia does not know me and I have no interest in being known by them.  Just providing information here.

This is a simple tale composed of two parts.  (A) What we need and (B) how hard it can be to obtain it because of (C) (my error, the tale has three parts) other people.  To demonstrate I take the situation of the new experimental temporary chemical toilet (A) near the Arsenal and (C) the city of Venice, some city councillors of.

People need places to relieve themselves, we’ll start there.  On the whole, visitors manage the situation by stopping at bars/cafe’s, buying something, and using the facilities.  But sometimes bars/cafe’s are closed.  Sometimes they are crowded.  Sometimes the WC is mysteriously out of service.  And sometimes the owners have to crack down on tourists who show up in groups of which one person buys a coffee and all the rest use the bathroom, as we call it in the US.  Not made up.  So one person is relieved, so to speak, and his or her nine friends have to start looking for a toilet somewhere else, or buy a coffee, which is clearly something they were hoping to avoid.

Impatient and drunk males at big gatherings at night have no problem at all:  Find the nearest wall.  Vertical structures exert an atavistic allure to men.  Ladies, you’re on your own, as usual.  But there are small side streets — I’m thinking of offshoots of Campo Santa Margherita — whose residents have been driven to install a gate to prevent revelers from using the street to resolve the situation.

Yes, this conveniently dark passageway was a public toilet, according to the public. Perfect, until the repulsed residents fought back with the gate.

At night these side streets seemed perfect for personal usage; I mean, nobody was using them to go anywhere. Except home, as it turned out.  Dog poop is bad enough, but good grief, people.  Note that there is a canal only a few steps farther along.  Just, you know, saying.
Before there were gates there were these, possibly the first attempt at a public deterrent.  A closer look at the lower area where the walls meet gives an idea of why this construction was installed.  Useful, but only up to a point. My theory is that anyone who was sufficiently far gone wouldn’t mind (or notice) his shoes getting wet. There are many of these around (I don’t know who thought them up, or paid for them).
You might have thought that the little shrine (“capitello”) to Saint Anthony of Padua might have given the person in need the idea to find another corner. Evidently not.
But why are we talking about deterrents? Let’s get back to options for aiding those in need. There used to be plenty of pissoirs in Venice, or vespasiani, in Italian.  The etymology of the name is simple: The Roman emperor Vespasian placed a tax on urine collection because the liquid’s ammonia was necessary for several activities, such as leather tanning.  The Venetian vespasians  were usually near an osteria, places where wine consumption carried consequences. This wall near the church of San Sebastiano bears its scars proudly.
Needs no explanation, it all seems pretty simple to me.
The vestigial water pipe.  Typically the wall here was covered by a marble slab (more resistant than brick, by far) down which a stream of water constantly ran, and out the drain.
This is the little street leading to Lino’s family home (visible at the far end).  The curve accommodated a vespasiano that was concealed by a slim wall open at both ends, hence no door, hence always available.  Nobody thought anything of walking past its perfume a thousand times a day.  Most osterias didn’t have their own toilets, so the public went in public.  Unhappily for Lino’s oldest brother, his apartment was just above an osteria that did have a primitive toilet.  Great for the customers, not great for the brother.  He and his wife got used to it?  Only up to a point.  They kept the overlooking window closed.  Especially in summer.
A small street flanking the Lutheran church at the Campo Santi Apostoli.  On the wall supporting the abandoned mattress there are signs of the vespasiano that was. Lino remembers it, so we’re not talking about ancient history.
Maybe when you get bored with looking at palaces you could start looking for the remnants of these once-useful things. I mean the vespasiano, not the mattress.  By the way, if people were cool with pissoirs all over town, what’s so bad about kiosks?
I’m referring to kiosks that look like the one by Hygien Venezia down by the Arsenal.  You notice it has been designed to be accessible to people in wheelchairs. (There’s also a ramp at the door.)  Electricity is supplied by a battery maintained by solar panels.

But the choice is not kiosks or nothing.  There are permanent public loos in Venice.  But there aren’t very many, their hours vary WIDELY — 8:00 AM to 8:30 PM is rational, so is 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM, but 11:00 AM to 4:30 PM or 10 AM – 7:30 PM is not. And they aren’t always open.  The WC by the Piazza San Marco is scheduled to open at 9:30 AM, and when I passed by at a very reasonable 10:45 AM it was shut up tight.  These hours undoubtedly reflect the convenience of the staff, and not the public.  Or whether the Comune has paid the water bill?

In an attractive gesture of collaboration, the city has an app to guide you to the nearest public toilet.  Perhaps it will be open, perhaps not, but at least you can say you found it.

A map of the not exactly numerous public toilets.  I count ten here — none on the Giudecca, for unknown reasons, but the one at the cemetery is helpful.  The ones strewn about the Maritime Zone are for the non-existent cruise passengers, so ignore them.  But again — pardon my diatribe — there is no reason to publish such a cheerful and encouraging map if the public can’t be sure the loo will be open when it’s needed.   The other day a friend of mine was in severe need on Sant’ Elena and both of the only two bars were closed.  The doors of the so-cheerfully indicated city toilet were locked.  This is not a happy memory.  But as I say, it does look nice on the map.
The public WC at the foot of the Accademia Bridge. This is what a self-respecting public toilet should look like.  Its most impressive feature?  It’s open.
They’re doing work these days, heavy work with tools. I just hope you weren’t counting on using this facility. Zwingle’s Fifth Law: Do not count on things.
A curious sub-class of public toilets are Those That Were (and I don’t mean vespasiani).  This building on the northwest corner of Campo San Polo was a public loo until some not-distant time in the past.  Lino remembers it well, and it had the advantage of being in an extremely busy point of the city.  So it could have been highly useful.  But as you see, the need for the sketchy Euronet cash machines was greater.  Sorry, I shouldn’t say “sketchy.”  But I can say this: Independent cash providers such as Travelex, Euronet, Moneybox, Your Cash, Cardpoint, and Cashzone have high fees, higher than a bank ATM.  Example: 15 euros on a 200-euro withdrawal. There are probably ten times more Euronet ATM’s than public toilets in Venice now.  Priorities!
Back to the toilets. Once you know what this place used to be, you can easily make it out. Those high windows somehow give it away.

I decided to experiment and went looking for one of the city’s toilets last Saturday afternoon around 5:00 PM.  I was near the Arsenal, and wondered where the large sign indicating a nearby loo might lead me.  I didn’t need it, and what a good thing that turned out to be.

This very narrow and slightly ominous street is marked as the route to salvation. The Calle del Cagnoleto is right by the area on the Riva degli Schiavoni where the day-tripping tourist launches load and unload their passengers, so it would seem to be an ideal place for a rest stop, as we say in the US.
Yes, that happy arrow up there points toward relief. Take heart and forge ahead!
Wow. Well okay, on we go.
The street passes in front of the green doors (I was walking from right to left). You are looking for what transit engineers call “confirming signs.” But instead of repeating the sign you are familiar with, there is only a rectangle of stone saying “Alle Docce” (you frantically check for translation and find “To the showers.”  Showers?  Who wants showers?).  There used to be an arrow, but any help that might have provided is long gone.
A few more steps onward and there is a small sign that gives you hope.
And the street opens up and you discover you have reached the “Comune di Venezia Docce Pubbliche.”  City of Venice Public Showers.  We’re looking for WC and we get docce (DAW-cheh).
Let us imagine that at this point I am now beginning to feel that this experience is less a trial run and more of a real run. Now what?
The Public Showers also include, as one has been supposing, public toilets. The green arrow on the front door, on the left, has pointed toward the right, so the entrance is one of those two doors. But I’ll never know, because as you see, the place was closed up tighter than a can of tuna. Five o’clock on Saturday afternoon.  It’s the end of the road, and your choice now, as there are no bars in sight, is to turn around and hope to find a Plan B before crisis strikes, or figure out how to use the canal a few steps away.  As to the showers, they are maintained by the Diocese of Venice to accommodate anyone who is without that option, either temporarily or permanently, and clean clothes are also available.  This is praiseworthy and I have nothing but respect for this service.  But about the WC……
But you can leave with the knowledge that, according to this very edifying sign, the areas that you cannot use at your moment of off-schedule need are paragons of ecologically sound cleanliness.  I notice that hours are not even scribbled on a Post-It note. You know, it’s easy to inveigh against tourists, but I would recommend that one remember that tourists are also people.  And this little five-minute exploration has not only disappointed and discouraged me but also seems ever so slightly insulting.  “Fine, we’ll let you use our toilets, but only when it suits us.”  Solution?  There ought to be many, but the simplest would be the mere addition of the opening hours to the sign at the entrance to the street — the sign that lured me hopefully onward.  That way, at least nobody with an important problem will waste precious time heading toward locked doors.  I suggest this minimum concession if you’re not going to keep the facility open while the sun is still shining and there are plenty of tourists still around.

So to review:  The options for needy travelers are: Resort to one of the numberless bars/cafes, when available either geographically or according to time of day; or public toilet, when available either geographically or according to time of day.  Or wall.  Or canal.

Let’s return to the kiosk.  The Comune opened the public-toilet project for bids in 2019, with a budget of 5 million euros, and only one company submitted a proposal. Hygien Venezia was prepared to proceed, then the pandemic intervened.  So now, three years later, the company has finally installed its creation for a two-week trial.  Then all the reports and analyses and opinions and pros and cons will be thrown into a box and shaken (I’m making that up), and some decision will be made on installing the 20 more that the company is ready to place strategically around town.

Don’t assume that decision will inevitably be in the positive.  This being Venice, some people have complained.  From shops and hotels and other enterprises, some people have objected.  The Nuova Venezia only referred to the protesters as “the categories.”  What category?  The Worshipful Company of Environmental Cleaners? (It exists, but not in Italy.)

Whatever the “categories” might be, eight city councilors have spoken up, expressing a desire to inquire of the mayor “on the basis of what information is it considered that Venice possessed the characteristics to manage the cleaning (removal of waste) of 28 chemical toilets.” It occurs to me that Hygien Venezia probably has foreseen the problem and the solution, and described the plan on the bid itself.  I’ll bet that they will be able to provide answers as needed, without bothering the mayor.

Perhaps the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) phenomenon has arrived in Venice.  There may well be those who do not wish to see one of these kiosks near their homes or places of business.  I will grant you that the general lack of space here means that there is a risk that a new structure, however modest, could make the immediate area even more  crowded.  However, there are also campos and fondamentas that can boast of space.  But let’s not quibble.  Essentially, there seems to be an innate propensity to assume something new won’t work rather than consider ways in which in might perhaps be configured to work.

There is bound to be space for one of these kiosks at Campo Santa Margherita without jostling anybody too far to the side.
I’m going to ask the people who live here how they’d feel about having the kiosk in the campo.

In my view, this is another of the many situations in which Venice’s perplexity as to how to manage the city comes to the fore. Lots of real cities have public toilets in the streets.  Paris comes to mind, obviously — if there’s a city with bars/cafe’s at every turn, that would be Paris, and yet there are 420 cubicles on the streets of  the City of Light, used 3 million times a year.  I grant that Parisian streets tend to be more spacious than your average calle.  But the port of Piraeus has concise public toilets, as do Madrid, and Oslo, and Berlin, and so on.  Or at the very least, reorganize the public toilets in Venice with rational hours and doors that can be opened.

“The categories” want tourists, and then people grumble at how demanding those tourists can be. It seems to me that Venice might occasionally consider dismounting from its high horse on certain issues.  Give the horse a rest.

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fog much?

Yesterday morning around 10:00 AM. This is the bacino of San Marco, looking toward the Grand Canal.

During the past two weeks there has been fog: Some days on, then sunshine, then back the fog rolls again.  It’s very poetic and romantic, looked at one way.  But it’s highly inconvenient if you need to take the vaporetto to do something unpoetic, because some lines are suspended, and the rest are all sent up and down the Grand Canal.  This means that you may well be walking farther to your destination than you had budgeted time and energy for.  Maybe you yourself can manage that, but if you’re a very sick and frail old lady — looking at you, Maria from upstairs — who has to get to the hospital for her chemotherapy, the fact that your vaporetto doesn’t exist today means you’re forced to take a taxi to the hospital.  That’ll be 50 euros please.  Going, and then coming home.  Not at all poetic if you’re living on 750 euros a month.

But let’s say you’re on one of the vaporettos, living a routine day.  Don’t relax completely.  Because even though the battelli (the big fat waterbuses) have radar, and so does the ferryboat trundling up and down the Giudecca Canal between Tronchetto and the Lido, that doesn’t guarantee that the drivers are looking at it, or if they are, are understanding what they are seeing.  Radar, much like bras or penicillin, is intended to help you, but only if you actually use it.

Visibility was like this this morning, and also yesterday morning.

I mention this because yesterday the fog was pretty thick.  And around 1:00 PM, the #2 that crosses the Giudecca Canal between the Zattere and the Giudecca itself collided with the ferry.  At that point the two routes are operating at right angles to each other.  Everybody knows this.  I mean, one shouldn’t be even minimally surprised to find these two boats out there.

But find each other they did.  In the collision nobody was hurt, but one passenger temporarily lost his mind and punched the marinaio, the person who ties up the boat at each stop, in the face.  Why the marinaio?  Because he was there, I suppose.  He certainly wasn’t navigating.  Nor was the captain, evidently.

This is roughly the area in which the accident occurred. There would have been very little traffic (this photo was not taken yesterday).  Plenty of space to maneuver, if one wanted to.

To translate the phrase in the brief article in La Nuova Venezia, “Probably the incident was caused by the thick fog.”  I don’t mean to be pedantic, but “The fog made me do it” doesn’t sound quite right.  The fog had been out for hours; it hardly sneaked up on the boats from behind.  The pedant further wonders why the fog gets all the blame.  It didn’t grab the two boats and push them together, like two hapless hamsters.  One might more reasonably say that the incident was caused by two individuals, one per boat, who were not paying attention either to the water ahead or to their radar.  Footnote: These vehicles operate on schedules.  I’m going to risk saying that one could easily predict when they would be, as they put it here, “in proximity to each other.”  If one wanted to.

The ferryboat gives Wagnerian blasts of its warning horn when small boats are in its path. There aren’t foghorns anymore, but the ferry’s klaxon can be heard for miles. If it’s blown.  (Il Gazzettino, uncredited)
This is one of the ferryboats, though maybe not the one involved yesterday. Clearly David met Goliath, but in this case it was David that took the hit. (photo uncredited ACTV)

But let’s return to the poetry.

Rio di San Giuseppe, Castello.
Rio di San Pietro, Castello.
Rio de l’Arsenal.
Admiring the view.
Riva degli Schiavoni.
Via Garibaldi.  Life goes on, and so does the trash.

Rio de la Ca’ di Dio.  The forecast is for more fog tomorrow.  If I put on my gray coat, I’ll disappear.

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comestible curiosities, and more

My day got off to a superb start with the discovery of the Boron family. Pace Tom Lehrer, I am now hopefully (note rare correct usage) awaiting the appearance of more relatives from the chemical elements clan. You remember them: fermium, mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium…. But joking to one side, I think the Boron family should be respected.  I have received no compensation for this mention, they don’t even know I exist.  Also that I do not drink alcohol.  But boron isn’t a name you expect to see around, especially if it’s attached to wine.  I mean, to people.

While we’re on the subject of food — and when are we not? — here are a few worthy character actors on the great Venetian culinary stage who may have been hidden in the swarm of the stereotypical food cluttering every Venetian menu.

Apples: There seemed to be no surprises left in the winter starting lineup.  Here almost all of those seen in Venice come from the great northern valleys of Non and Venosta — Delicious (or Melinda), Royal, Gala, Pink Lady, Fuji. But the other day a newcomer found a place at the end of the bench, so to speak: The annurca/anurka apple, officially known as the Melannurca Campana I.G.P. (Indicazione Geografica Protetta).  Luca on the fruit and vegetable barge told us that it is an autochthonous breed, native to the Campania region.  Its admirers refer to it as “the queen of the Caudine valley.”  I’m sorry to bring up a sensitive subject, but it’s nice to know that that particular area is famous for something other than one of Rome’s most humiliating defeats.  Read up on the Battle of the Caudine Forks (321 B.C.) if you want to re-evaluate some of your life choices.
The annurca (Malus pumila) is one of the symbols of the Campania region, where it has been cultivated for at least two millennia; it is depicted in frescoes in Herculaneum and mentioned by Pliny the Elder. Why haven’t we seen it here before?  (Or more to the point, why are we seeing it now?)  This delectable sweet, firm, slightly acidic little fruit represents a mere five percent of the national apple production, and two-thirds of the crop is absorbed by Campania and Lazio, while another 20 percent reaches Lombardy, Piemonte and Tuscany.  That leaves precious little for the rest of us, but somehow the Veneto is now on their delivery route, and this trusty little veteran is a wonderful discovery.  Or, if it could talk, it might well say “I’ve been around for thousands of years; where have YOU been?”
It really is the most agreeable little apple. I’m glad it’s managed to hang on.
These gnarly little knobs are not ginger. They are a wintry visitor that usually appears so briefly that you could easily overlook them.  This year, for some reason, they have lingered longer. Meet topinambur (toe-pin-am-BOOR), or Helianthus tuberosus.  Jerusalem artichoke, Canadian sunflower, sunchoke, sunroot, and/or German turnip.  It is a South American plant; its curious name here probably derives from the Tupinamba’, an indigenous people of Brazil.  One method of preparing it is to scrape away the surface dirt, saute’ some garlic in extravirgin olive oil, cut the tubers into very thin slices, toss them into the oil and garlic, adding salt and pepper and a little vegetable broth, if needed, to keep them from drying out.  They’re very pleasant, something like a potato, or maybe a water chestnut, with a slight flavor of artichoke.
This is just sad. How could this celestial espresso machine end up in this condition?  Sex?  Drugs? Rock and roll?  And why is it sitting outside the front door of this restaurant?  Isn’t it supposed to be in rehab somewhere?
“All hat, no cattle” is a common, if cutting, judgment given as necessary in the American West.  It comes to mind in the case of this marvelous –judging by appearances — mollusk.  Are you tired of clams?  You should be, they’re the prime, and sometimes only, bivalve on Venetian restaurant menus.  (Stop right there: Of course there are often mussels on offer, but they don’t fall in the “clam” category of this  cadenza.)  If you should happen to see “spaghetti con telline,” which has happened to me exactly once, know that you will have a plate that cries out to be photographed. But as for the telline (tell-EE-neh) themselves, you may not even realize you’ve eaten something.  They are so tiny and so insipid that you will be happier admiring their shells than consuming their contents.  I have never seen them in the fish markets, although they come from the shallow Adriatic shoreline, Lino tells me.  So they are local, in one sense.  They’re out there somewhere.  Bonus points: Skip the first course and just buy a batch of “purple tellin shells” from Etsy.  Not made up.  Look for the ones called “purple coquina shells.”

Somebody loves pasta.  Somebody is selling pasta.   This sculpture was in the window of the Pastificio Serenissima some while back.  The can is not leaning on the shelf; it is being held aloft by the column of stuck-together bowties (or what they call butterflies here) and some nubbin I can’t identify.  This photo is here for fun, not for erudition.
Nothing to do with food, but I just can’t keep it to myself.  Wandering around, I came across these clarion phrases.  An anonymous door on the street is talking to YOU.  The first sign in heavy black letters in equally heavy Venetian dialect translates as “And until I come back nobody can come in!”  That clearly wasn’t enough, because a second notice is taped above it, saying “I repeat until I come back nobody is allowed to come in.  And he that can has my number.”  So nobody except somebody is permitted to enter.  From behind the door came loud noises of a chainsaw and the tiny gleam of a lightbulb.  Conclusion: The proprietor is not far away on a cruise to the North Cape, but slaving away at something.  Building a replica of the Kon-Tiki?  Whatever it is, nobody is permitted to see it until he comes back, and only if you know the guy who has his number.  Update:  I went by today, and the two signs have been removed, leaving the bit you can barely see is already taped beneath.  That bit carries one word: “Chiuso.”  Closed.  You can’t quibble with that, it’s final.
This is not a comestible. It is merely a cat so remarkable he/she/it looks as if it were designed.  Even the nose is part of the scheme.  The eyes, though, give me the strange sensation of being weighed in the balance and found wanting.  If a person looks at you like that you can try to do something.  But cats don’t care.
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remembering Giuseppe Jona

October 28, 1866 – September 17, 1943

January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Unfortunately today is also the beginning of Carnival, which makes anybody who cares even a little bit about one or the other — or worse, both — feel a tad awkward.

But I’m proceeding with Remembrance Day because it is an especially appropriate moment to remember doctor and professor Giuseppe Jona, once known as the “doctor of the poor” for his charitable care of indigent Venetians of every, or no, creed.

He didn’t limit his attention only to sickbeds.  Among many other things, he was also the president of the Jewish community, and on September 15, 1943 he cared for his endangered people by making the ultimate sacrifice.  In a sense he was killed by the Nazi occupiers of Venice, but he got one step ahead of them.

Typical “stumbling stone” that commemorates victims of Nazi extermination. This is placed in front of  Giuseppe Jona’s home in the Ghetto. It says: “Here lived Giuseppe Jona born 1866  He sought refuge in death  September 17 1943.”

No need for me to be melodramatic.  The facts are enough to delineate a person whom it’s unlikely anyone reading this could imagine emulating, but who must never be forgotten.

Giuseppe Jona (pronounced YOH-na) was born in Venice in 1866, the fourth of five children of a middle-class Jewish family, his father a doctor.  He graduated from the University of Padova in Medicine, and served as professor of Anatomy at Padova as well as working at Venice’s hospital.  Over the course of 40 years he became head of the department of Pathology (1905 – 1912), and Medicine (1912-1936).

Unmarried, he “lived for his brothers and nieces/nephews,” says one article about him, “for his students and colleagues, for social projects and scientific research.”  Above all, he was dedicated to developing young doctors at the hospital’s “Practical School of Medicine and Surgery,” founded in 1863 to enable department heads to prepare young doctors by taking them on rounds in the wards.  He also introduced a methodic approach to performing autopsies, and served as an auxiliary doctor in military hospitals during World War I.

This completely new pavilion was dedicated to Giuseppe Jona in 2015.  It contains state-of-the-art facilities for pulmonology, gynecology, geriatric care, obstetrics, pediatrics, and I may have overlooked something else.  There is a helipad on the roof.

His world stretched far beyond medicine, though.  He became a member of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti, and was president of the Ateneo Veneto (the supreme intellectual group in Venice, I’m going to say) from 1921 to 1924.  He founded a circulating library.  He founded a museum of anatomy at the city hospital.  I’m leaving out enormous masses of information but the point is that he was known and esteemed by Venetians in many different fields and levels.

Now we get to the heart of the man.  Along with his sister, he always sought out the neediest patients in several hospitals, convinced that it was a human obligation to try to mitigate social inequality regardless of religion or belief.  He then opened a medical studio where he treated the poorest patients free of charge. He came to be commonly referred to as “the doctor of the poor.”

A plaque in the entryway to the hospital.  “From 1832 until the First World War, in the area visible here in front of the San Giorgio courtyard, was the ward separated to accommodate the patients of the Jewish religion.”

He resigned his position at the hospital in 1936, probably intuiting that what became the “racial laws” in 1938 were already on the horizon, edicts that would have required his expulsion from the hospital, followed by expulsion from the scientific and cultural institutions to which he belonged.  In 1940, along with every other Jewish physician, his name was removed from the official register of doctors, thus being forbidden to care for any patients whatever.  (He continued to visit them at night, wrapped in a vast cloak and hat.)

At that moment, the rabbi and council of the Jewish congregation, perfectly aware that Jona had never attended the synagogue and wasn’t known even to be a believer, elected him as president of the Jewish community.  With his sensitivity to ethics and as a sign of respect to his parents, he accepted.

Of course matters became steadily worse.  Friends and colleagues urged him to leave Venice and flee to hiding in the countryside; he refused.

This entrance hallway to the main hospital bears an important marker.
The laurel wreath laid by the city, and the single rose beloved by Venice, stand by one of the numerous “stumbling stones” in Venice that mark victims of the Holocaust.
It says: “In 1944 15 Jewish patients were deported from this hospital, assassinated in the Nazi camps.”
It says: “Placing of the stumbling stone in memory of the deportation of the Jews present in the Civil Hospital of Venice to the Nazi extermination camps.  Jewish patients gathered in the detention room and deported on October 11 1944 by the infamous Captain Franz Paul Stangl.”  The names follow.  Then: “On October 26 1944 were also deported by Captain Stangl Margherita Gruenwald the widow Levi, and Regina Brandes in Toso, the only person who was miraculously able to save herself and return to her Venice in September 1945.”  (Detail: The term “in Toso” indicates that her husband’s last name was Toso, but that he was still alive.  Otherwise it would have been written ved. Toso, or widow — vedova — of Toso.  This is the very useful custom still followed on death announcements.)

In the autumn of 1943 the Nazi occupiers, under orders from Captain Franz Stangl (already commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp), ordered Jona to submit the names and addresses of the 1,350 Jews in Venice.  Their fate was essentially sealed.

Giuseppe Jona had already written his will, in his tiny, precise handwriting, leaving his 1,684 books to the city hospital, and his money and belongings to an extraordinary assortment of groups and organizations serving the poor and needy.  He also made a bequest to the family’s elderly servants, who could never have found other income.

It was the night of September 15, 1943.  Certain that he would not be able to withstand the torture that would follow his refusal to provide the list, he destroyed every document that could identify members of the community.  And then he gave himself a fatal overdose of morphine.  His body was found on the 16th, and the death registered on September 17.  The entire city was in an uproar; the startled Germans forbade a funeral cortege and basically waited for it all to blow over.

And the 1,350 Jews on the list?  In some manner he had enabled 1,100 of them to escape.

This memorial is on the wall by the Jona pavilion front door. The laurel wreath was placed by the city for Remembrance Day.  The inscription (translated by me): “The illustrious anatomist and clinician honored the hospital for 40 years with the profundity of the teaching and the fecundity of his works in times torn by violence and extremism affirmed with the supreme sacrifice of himself the insuppressible rights of human conscience.  Devoted students, colleagues and faithful friends desire that from the image of the civil master the hospital doctors draw the inspiration for their efforts in this new dwelling of suffering and of fraternal succor.”
Giuseppe Jona (artist unidentified).
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