Blind Plea - Listen Now: Pack One Bag featuring Stanley Tucci

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

We are dropping in your feed today to share a new series that we know you will enjoy. Pack One Bag is epic true story of an Italian family, split apart by love, fascism and war. Through shocking discoveries - and Stanley Tucci’s artistry - an enthralling personal history comes to life.  When documentarian David Modigliani was a kid, his grandfather, Franco, won the Nobel Prize. But, David’s always been more fascinated by the love story that made it possible -- his grandparents' romance on the run from Fascist Italy. When he digs into their story, he uncovers a darker side to their fairytale escape: a brother left behind to face the Nazi occupation - and startling personal connections between his family and Benito Mussolini. In the Tribeca-winning podcast, PACK ONE BAG, he returns to Italy to investigate his family's past, carrying a pressing question: if Fascism takes over your country, do you stay, or do you try to flee? And what happens if you can’t? You’re about to hear a preview of the first episode of Pack One Bag. After you listen, head to https://lemonada.lnk.to/packonebagfd to hear more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LEMONADA Hey, my name is David Modigliani, and when I was a kid, my grandfather, my nonno Franco, won the Nobel Prize. But I've always been more fascinated by the love story that made it possible, my grandparents' romance on the run from fascist Italy. And when I dug into their story, I began to uncover a darker side of that fairy tale. A brother left behind to face the Nazis and shocking personal connections between my family and Benito Mussolini.

In my new limited series podcast, Pack One Bag, I go back to Italy to investigate my family's past. I want to know if fascism takes over your country, do you stay or do you try to flee? And what happens if you can't? The journey reconnects me with my Italian cousins who take me back to the places they nearly died

as children during the war, and to the Italian White House to sit down with my grandfather's former student who became the prime minister. Along the way, I discover troves of secret fascist spy documents, personal diaries, blocked bank accounts, and honestly, a love story of my own. In the podcast Pack One Bag, I bring it all to life with the help of Signore Stanley Tucci. I'm so excited to be able to share the beginning of episode one of this show with you right

here in this feed. After you hear this clip, just search for Pack One Bag in your podcast app to listen to the rest. You can also find a link in the show notes that will take you right there. Please enjoy Pack One Bag. Could I look at it? I think so. I mean, I got to dig it out.

I think it's in the safe. I hope it's in the safe. Okay. That's my dad, Sergio. He's opening this safe in my parents' home. Well, it got opened. We're looking for something that belonged to my dad's father, my nonno Franco. This looks promising.

Yes, this is definitely his medallion. It's heavy circular gold with the face of Alfred Nobel on it. I was only five when my white-haired grandfather, the nice guy with the accent who would get down on the rug and play with me sometimes, won the Nobel Prize. The 1985 prize for economics went to the hot favorite, the Italian-born, naturalized American Franco Modigliani.

Franco was front-page news across the world. Stacks of foreign papers featuring Nonno Franco's victory came in faster than my grandmother could clip them out. But Nonno was most tickled by the coverage from Italy. I just got an Italian very popular newspaper with the front page, the price of dynamite to the refugee from fascism. The refugee from fascism, the papers called him. They said he'd fled Italy.

One Italian put it this way. He said, today Modigliani's our great pride, but he's also our great shame because of what we did here to turn him into an American. Despite what his mother country put him through, Nonna Franco held Italy close to him, even at the Nobel Prize ceremony. In the group photos with all the winners decked out in matching white tie and tails,

he's the only one who's added some extra flair. Across his chest, he's wearing the green sash of Italian knighthood. At that pinnacle moment, he wanted the whole world to know where he came from. He wanted to tell a story. And that story is what brings me to my parents' house in Boston, to open up this safe and hold his medallion in my hands. Yeah, just take a picture of it. Okay.

To most folks, this prize is an emblem of academic success. To me, it's really an emblem of survival. I grew up hearing about how Nonno Franco was just a 20-year-old kid when Benito Mussolini passed racial laws against Jews like him, about how lucky he was to have fallen in love with this girl Serena, and about her family taking him along when they fled the country. As a kid I was fascinated by my grandparents' romance on the run, all this turmoil they escaped just in the

nick of time. And as I became a documentary filmmaker, I kept telling myself that I'd capture their story. I told myself I'd spend a solid week together with them, recording in one place all the anecdotes they'd shared over the years. I thought, I have time, I'll get around to it. But I didn't prioritize it. And then my nonna died. First Nonna Franco, then my nonna Serena.

I will never get those tapes of my grandparents that I promised myself I'd make. But when they died, my nonna left behind a parting gift for their grandchildren, a trove of their love letters full of their stories. And when I read those letters, I can hear their voices so distinctly. I always did these little impersonations of them for my sister and my cousins.

Serena, please don't treat me like a child. Franco, this morning you drove away with your briefcase on the roof of the car. They always sounded to me like those old couples in When Harry Met Sally, the ones being interviewed about their love stories. So sometimes I imagine the interview I would have done with my nunny if I'd acted sooner. In my mind, it sounds something like this. Now I keep talking?

Okay, see, my name is Serena Calabi Modigliani, and yes, I'm agreeing to these interviews and to showing you these letters your Nonna Franco and I wrote to each other while we were running from Mussolini. But, David, on the condition you promised me that you won't share these letters until I die. But what about me?

Okay, until both of us die then, Franco and I. Well, hopefully me first. Why you? Because I couldn't bear life without you, Serena. And so you want me to bear it without you instead? Always to bear everything for both of us? Mama, Serena, hopefully we die at the same time, okay? At the exact same time.

Does that make you happy? I gotta say, I get why my grandmother was reluctant to share those letters. Franco, you were a literary pornographer at times, so that I... All very tasteful. I wouldn't be able to look my grandchildren in the eye. Like the nudes in the Sistine Chapel.

But the dead don't... Come si dice arrosire? Blush. Blush. The dead don't blush. And I do want my grandchildren to know this history, your history. That's why I'm sharing these letters with you, to show you how love got us through the horror of it all.

Love, yes, but also luck, Serena. Because there is another side to the story here. I mean, everything we escaped and everyone we left behind. The woman from the neighborhood says to me, they are looking for you. You go out, go out, go out. It's too dangerous. You resist as long as you can, as best as you can. And when you can't resist no more, you flee. My name is David Modigliani, and this is Pack One Back,

the story of my Italian Jewish family split apart by war. And my quest to understand, if fascism takes over your country, do you stay or do you try to flee? And what happens if you can't? This is episode one, The Fairy Tale Escape.