Pia Mariani and Leo Mariani were mother and son respectively, victims of the Shoah. Pia Mariani was the daughter of Vittorio Cesana and Lina Calimani. She was born on 17 July 1922 in Venice and married Enrico Mariani, also born in Venice on 9 June 1912, son of Francesco Isacco Mariani and Bellina Molli. Their union resulted in the birth in the winter of 1943 of their son Leo Mariani.
Enrico Mariani and Pia Mariani’s marriage was very hard and tormented, as on 5 December 1943, shortly after the wedding, Enrico was arrested in the prison of Santa Maria Maggiore prison in Venice. After learning of the arrest, Pia decided to join her husband in the Santa Maria Maggiore prison despite being pregnant with their first child, Leo Mariani.
This episode is very similar to the story told by Roberto Benigni in ‘Life is Beautiful’. In this case, however, the story is not fictitious, but is real and truly tragic.
Pia Mariani remained in the prison with her husband until 18 December 1943, when Pia was transferred to the Civil Hospital in Venice due to the approaching delivery. In fact, on 18 December 1943 Leo Mariani was born in the Civil Hospital in Venice. A few days after the birth, mother and child were taken back to the Santa Maria Maggiore prison and reunited with husband Enrico Mariani.
The following year, the entire Mariani family was deported to Fossoli, Modena. The Fossoli camp was built in 1942 and in 1944 transformed into a police and transit camp,
i.e. used as an ‘antechamber’ to the Nazi Lagers. From that camp also departed Primo
Levi, who recalls his stay in Fossoli in the first pages of “If This is a Man” and in the poem “Sunset at Fossoli”. From there the entire Mariani family was deported to Auschwitz with convoy number 08, which left on 22 February 1944 and arrived at the extermination camp on 26 February 1944. From that moment on, we lose track of the family: Pia is not identified with any number, while her son Leo is identified with the serial number “S”.
No one survived the Auschwitz Concentration Camp,
neither Pia, nor Enrico, nor little Leo who was barely two weeks old when he left on the convoy bound for the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
The stumbling stones dedicated to Pia and Leo Mariani were laid on 31 January 2020.
Sources: IVESER, Yad Vashem
Content created by the students of the Benedetti Tommaseo High School in Venice