Dear Readers,
September brings the Italian Labor Swap for Belgian Coal (1946) as my “Labor Day” rerun in memory of all those “old times” who toiled throughout the world under deplorable conditions so their children might have a brighter future.
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In 1946 there was a fuel shortage in Italy, and a shortage of miners in Belgium, so government bureaucrats of both countries signed a deal to trade Italian men for Belgium coal. Fifty thousand impoverished, unemployed Italians were to be sent in shifts from collection centers in Milan to work the mines of Wallonia, southern Belgium. In return, the Italian government would receive 200 kilos of coal for each new miner, amounting to two or three million tons each year. Italy solved its fuel shortage; Belgium expanded its work- force. It was the beginning of the Italian community in Belgium, now 300,000 strong.
The emigrants, mostly peasants, had no idea of the agreement that had been signed or the kind of life they were going to. The men received no training at all. Mostly, they were peasants who had never even heard of mines before. On their first day, 1,000 meters below surface, many wondered where the windows were. Italy did not inspect the accommodations provided for the miners. For the first few years, home returned out to be the barracks of former concentration camps built by the Nazis to house slave workers. No questions were asked regarding safety in the mines, which dated from the 1890’s and were in disrepair.
More than 1,000 Italians died over the following ten years in mine accidents. Others were killed by silicosis and other mine-related illnesses. Then, on August 8, 1956, a devastating pit fire choked 262 people in a mat- ter of minutes in the mine of Bois de Cazier at Marcinelle, near the industrial city of Charleroi; 136 of them were Italian. The official verdict at the inquest was that the accident had been caused by human error. The fire started at 8:00 in the morning. The gas released did the rest. For the great majority of the miners, working without oxygen masks, there was no escape. Only 13 survived. Silvio Di Luzio, now in his 80s, was part of an 18-strong rescue team sent from a nearby mine. “We got there at 8:30”, he recalls, “Thick black smoke was coming out the shaft. You could hardly breathe outside the mine. We went in for consecutive shifts for 15 days. We rescued and slept. And all we brought out, apart from seven guys first day, were corpses. It was just hell”.
The rescue lasted 55 days. Officially, all but five corpses were recovered and buried under the solemn monument of Marcinelle’s cemetery. But the miners insist that dozens of coffins were filled with stones to give the families and the governments peace of mind. “What I’ll never forget is the sight of the families pressing against the gates of the mine when the news spread - Di Luzio adds - The Red Cross provided some tents and they stayed for days. Of course we knew (all the miners knew) that those trapped would have died like mice in a matter of hours.
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“We did not know about the deal that had been made or about the dangers of mine work - said Vittorio Dal Gal, president of the former miners association, who arrived at Marcinelle when he was 21 - All we knew was that there was no work and that a Belgian franc was worth twelve Italian lire. The illnesses and deprivations came as a shock to most of us”. “The pact was that we had to work the mines for five years before we could look for any other job - he adds - Many starved themselves, scrimped and saved to be off after those five years. They went back home but died of ling trouble. Those first five years were forced labor”.
The tragedy of Marcinelle was to mark a sea of change in the treatment of Italians in Belgium. “Up until then we had been called ‘macaroni’ and ‘Mussolini’ by the Belgians. There was a lot of racism. After that, the Belgians realized that we were just honest people trying to make an honest living. The tragedy also meant that safety became an issue. We are alive today only thanks to those who died then”.
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The mines were all closed by the early 1960s, sparing the next generation. After the mine closures, most former miners were absorbed into the steel industry, and a sizeable minority into the professions. Today the Italian community in Belgium is thriving and integrated. Italian is the third language spoken in the country after French and Flemish.
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Many second and third-generation Italians have become Belgian icons. The Italians have produced the 1960s singer Salvatore Adamo and footballer Enzo Scifo. The country’s best- known Italian is Paola Rufo di Calabria, who did not arrive in Belgium on an immigrants’ train but in a wedding cortege, having married the king’s brother Albert and was Belgium’s queen. The beautiful Italian-born Queen Paola (Rufo di Calabria) married the late King’s brother Albert in 1959, and began her reign as Belgium’s queen in 1993.
Following the unexpected death of King Baudouin (the public did not know of his heart operation in Paris in 1992), his widow, Queen Fabiola, who in the early years of her marriage had miscarried many times in a vain attempt to produce an heir to the Belgium throne, retired with dignity. With the accession to the throne of the king’s brother Albert, his “Italian bride”, Paola dubbed the “Sunshine Princess” when she married Albert (at age 22), became queen. King Albert was born on June 6, 1934, third child of King Leopold III and Queen Astrid.
Albert was named after his grandfather who died three months earlier. Albert had just begun to take his steps when his world of happiness took a dramatic turn - Queen Astrid was killed in a car accident when her husband, Leopold, had been driving recklessly. Queen Astrid had been a perfect queen and mother and was adored by her three children, Josephine, Baudouin and Albert. Her untimely death turned their fairytale’s lives into a nightmare. In his teens, Albert entered the navy and his passion for the sea did not diminish. In 1959, all of Belgium rejoiced at Prince Albert’s choice of bride. Paola Rufo di Calabria had not even reached her 22nd birthday when she married Prince Albert of Belgium. They had met in Rome seven months earlier, quite by chance, at a reception at the Belgian Embassy where they had danced the night away together.
After that, the smiling couple were inseparable. Five months later, they announced their engagement. With her beaming smile, Paola won the hearts of the Belgian nation. The royal wedding, which took place on July 2, 1959, became a national holiday. The next ten years of marriage for Albert and Paola seemed idyllic. The princess gave birth to three beautiful children: Philippe, Astrid and Laurent. “The Sunshine Princess” light up the royal court with her warm heart and radiance. Long live the Queen!
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Labor day reminds me that the late John Volpe, a former state Governor and Ambassador to Italy started out laboring in construction. Back in the 1960s Spiro Agnew was picked by Richard Nixon to be his running mate. Ponder this: what if Nixon had picked John Volpe, one of my favorite people, whom I met many times when he was president of the NIAF, instead of Agnew in 1968? Volpe would have been vice-president, and, if he were vice-president when Nixon resigned because of Watergate, Volpe would automatically have become President of the United States of America.
The late John Volpe was a prince of a fellow, a genuine down deep, decent gentleman. The former Governor and Ambassador to Italy had a prodigious memory and would greet people by name even if he had only met them briefly before. John Volpe’s character was molded in a family environment we seldom see today. His father, Vito, had a stern moral code and like many Italian men of his time, he was the absolute authority in the Volpe family. Vito had a tenacity that was inherited by his son; it was this tenacity that carried John Volpe to fame and wealth. John headed the highly successful Volpe Construction Company of Malden, Massachusetts, which served as a spring board for him in the world of politics.
He became the commissioner of Public Works in Massachusetts and from that post went on to serve his native state as Governor for three terms, devoid of any scandal. He served as the first Federal Highway administrator in the Eisenhower Administration; secretary of Transportation; Ambassador to Italy in the Nixon Administration. His appointment as ambassador was “a dream come true”. A true son of Abruzzi, “Forte ma Gentile” - Strong but Gentle is their motto, John Volpe certainly was all that and more. A good read is “John Volpe - The life of an Immigrant’s son” authored by Kathleen Kilgore. It may be out of print, but try for a used copy.
