Eugenio e Silvia Elfer

Eugenio Elfer (Source: CDEC)

Eugenio Elfer [known as Nino] was born in 1920 and earned a degree in Political Science at a very young age; his sister Silvia, three years younger, was a talented pianist. They were both bright and promising young individuals, children of Antonio and Elisabetta Deutsch from Trieste. The family moved to Rome before 1938. 

In the days following the Armistice, during the attempted defence of the capital against the Germans, Eugenio took on the task of transporting weapons and supplies to the fighters at Porta San Paolo. He was one of seven Jews to take part in that desperate battle. After the German occupation of the city, the family relocated for safety reasons to Corvaro, near Rieti, on the border with Abruzzo.

Here, Nino and his sister joined the Gran Sasso partisan group and began collaborating with the British Eighth Army: “thus beginning their work of solidarity, hiding hundreds of Allied prisoners in the mountains and caves. For many months, they devoted themselves to helping them with food, medicine, money, and clothing, never sparing themselves and constantly risking their lives under the threat of Nazi-Fascist persecution, who were tracking them down.” 

Silvia Elfer (Source: CDEC)

Frank Roberts, of the British Army and one of the beneficiaries of their help, recounts how the Elfers had organized aid for at least a hundred soldiers; while Willson Lloyd recalls how the young siblings repeatedly refused any rewards or reimbursements that were nonetheless offered to them.

Nino, in particular, not only devoted himself to providing material assistance to the escapees but also acts as a guide. His mother recounts in this regard: “Since October 1943, he had created an organisation in Abruzzo to gradually guide the scattered Allied prisoners toward the Allied lines; already then, he was in contact with the Allied command through a radio transmitter that had been made available to him.” In mid-October, the young man escorted a group of officers to the Sangro River (among the soldiers was a certain General Thomson of the British Indian Army). Here, however, the group was intercepted by the Germans who opened fire: one soldier was killed, another wounded. Nino, however, managed to save the other men by hiding them in a cave. For his courage — his mother reports — he was appointed by Thomson himself as a “lieutenant in the British Army.”

On November 16, 1943, a Gestapo unit from Rome surrounded the village of Corvaro searching for the Elfer family and some escaped prisoners. Thanks to the help and loyalty of the local population, the Elfers were not captured, although they were forced to change hiding places several times, “living like hunted animals”.

Major Leslie Young, who escaped from PoW camp PG 49 in Fontanellato and arrived in Corvaro in December 1943, recalls how the Elfer siblings provided him with clothes, boots, and a sum of 10,000 lire. Stricken with pneumonia, he was hidden in a shepherd’s hut used by locals and cared for until full recovery.

After the Allied landing at Anzio in January 1944, Eugenio and Silvia, together with Count Carlo Tevini [or Trevini], escorted a group — including Young and Gatenby themselves — to the Allied lines.

As Captain Gatenby recounts in his report, on the night of February 5–6, while advancing through the snow and buffeted by a freezing wind, they were targeted by a German machine gun that caught them by surprise as they crawled across a German minefield. Tevini was wounded, and no further news was heard of Nino. Everyone hoped he had escaped, but he was instead fatally shot.

The group continued crawling and, upon reaching the edge of an American minefield, came under attack again: this time Silvia was struck in the throat. Young and Gatenby shouted in English to show that they were not enemies. The gunfire finally ceased; the girl and Gatenby, wounded in the arm, were taken to a nearby field hospital. The young woman, in serious condition, died shortly thereafter.

Antonio Elfer, father of the two children, passed away a few months after those tragic events, broken by grief.

Elisabetta, their mother, was assisted by the Allied Commission in locating Nino’s remains, which were still missing. The young man was buried in Borgo Padigora (Latina), where he is recorded as having died on February 5, 1944, as a result of “war actions.”

The mother, who was awarded a sum of 450,000 lire by the Allied Commission, later decided to donate the entire amount to the Foundation for War Orphans in memory of her children.

The Garibaldi Medal and the King’s Commendation were awarded in memory of Eugenio and Silvia Elfer.