Lord Cryer's Sporting Heroes: The Italian Cycling Stars Who Fought Fascism
Gino Bartali beats Fausto Coppi in the Giro d’Italia in 1946 (SuperStock/Alamy)
4 min read
Lord Cryer remembers two stars of Italian cycling, one of whom died in mysterious circumstances after standing up to fascism, and another who risked it all to save Jewish lives
The bike racing season in Europe is now drawing to a close with the three major races – the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España – all finished. At the same time and on a much more bitter note, it is widely acknowledged that antisemitism is rising rapidly across our continent. Those two sentences may seem unrelated. However, between the two world wars, antisemitism, fascism and the world of Italian cycling were very closely connected.
The first international star of Italian cycling was called Ottavio Bottecchia. He was also the first Italian to win the Tour de France, which he did twice. While still very much in his prime, he was found dying at the side of the road. Benito Mussolini’s fascists, who were already in power in Rome, took the view that he had suffered a crash while out on a training ride. This claim was undermined by the fact that his bike was found parked against a wall without a scratch on it.
The priest who administered the last rites to Bottecchia was always convinced that he was murdered by a fascist gang. Crucially, the cyclist was a vehement opponent of fascism and was close to the Italian Communist Party. His political leanings were widely known and had certainly caused anger among Mussolini’s followers.
Of Italy’s great pre-war racers, the most notable was undoubtedly Gino Bartali. While Bottecchia is relatively obscure these days, Bartali certainly is not. He became the second Italian to win the Tour in 1938 and triumphed in the Giro in 1936 and 1937. But unlike Bottecchia, Bartali was not known to be particularly political. He always supported the Christian Democrats but that was more an adjunct to his devotion to the Catholic Church, particularly after the death of his brother in a road-racing crash. For much of his life, he was known as Gino the Pious.
Mussolini declared war on the Allies in support of Adolf Hitler in 1940 in the belief that Britain would collapse within a couple of weeks, which just goes to show how wrong one can be.
Rather than reap the spoils of war without any sacrifice, of course, the Italian government found itself having to mobilise thousands of men to fight British and Empire troops in north Africa. Italian forces suffered terrible casualties, not least because its members understandably could not see any reason why they were fighting in the first place.
Bartali, after a brief spell in the army, returned to his home in Florence. Mussolini’s Blackshirts had become more antisemitic during the course of the 1930s but their racial hatred never reached the levels of systematic extermination seen in Germany and other countries. That changed when the government fell as Allied forces pushed north to Rome. German soldiers arrived en masse in northern Italy and Mussolini was set up in a puppet government based in Salò on Lake Garda.
The comprehensive murder of Italian Jews then began in earnest and Bartali decided to resist the odious machinery of fascism. He carried forged identity documents for the resistance in the saddle tube of his bike while he completed lengthy rides across northern Italy, undoubtedly saving many Jewish lives. He also hid a Jewish family in the cellar of his home.
On his frequent rides carrying the means of escape and survival for those who would otherwise have been murdered, he always wore his racing jersey emblazoned with his name.
Fascist and Nazi troops at various checkpoints usually chose not to stop him when they saw the jersey.
Of course, his activities were always extraordinarily dangerous and at one point Bartali thought his luck had run out. He was taken to Villa Triste, the fascist HQ in Florence, and held in the cellars there, as all prisoners were. The cellars had been used for the storage of coal, so the floors were covered in blood and coal dust. He was questioned extensively by the local Blackshirt commander, the particularly odious and sadistic Mario Carità. Somehow, Bartali held his nerve and managed to talk his way out of trouble. He was released and went home to continue his work for the resistance. Yet he never talked about his heroism, and it was only revealed in 2010.
In 2013, some 13 years after his death, Yad Vashem recognised Bartali’s heroism by awarding him the title Righteous Among the Nations, a very fitting tribute to someone who had risked everything.
During the grim times in which we live, as antisemitism seems to permeate the fabric of British society and Jewish schools and places of worship are forced to devote ever greater resources to security, the story of Gino Bartali is one we should remember.
