“I was born in Verona, Italy on October 6, 1937. Fascism, Nazism, and Communism were raging through the country.
…..
In the spring of 1941, German officers came to our chalet and arrested my mother. …I have believed that her place of incarceration was Dachau.
..at age 4½, I set off on my own. I headed south, sometimes living in the streets, sometimes joining gangs of other homeless children, sometimes living in orphanages, and most of the time being hungry.
My recollections of those four years are vivid but not continuous, rather like a series of snapshots. Some of them are brutal beyond description, others more palatable.
..The same day that my mother arrived at the hospital, she bought me a full set of new clothes, a Tyrolean outfit complete with a small cap with a feather in it. I still have the hat.
My mother’s younger brother, Edward, had sent her money to buy two boat tickets to America. I was expecting to see roads paved with gold in America.
As it turned out, I found much more: opportunities.”
A short excerpt of the autobiography of Mario Capecchi that went to win the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Resilience and determination at its best.
Let’s get ready for 2021