The “Trains of Happiness”: the solidarity project that led 70,000 poor children to live with well -off families in Italy

It is what was known in Italy as Trains of happiness, a Plan organized by the Italian Women Union and the Italian Communist Party, and that was an effort to relieve the situation of that beaten childhood.

And although then Bianca did not know, the journey he undertook in the “train of happiness” that day would change his life forever.

Bianca grew in the city of Salerno, 55 kilometers southeast of Naples. The area was one of the most affected by World War II.

Now, at 88, he says that when thinking at that time there are “memories of misery and dirt.”

“We had no water, there was not even water to drink. Not much less to wash each Witness History of the BBC.

His father had died at age 40, leaving his widowed mother and with seven other children in tow.

“No one took a salary home … we raffled it as we could.”

“And in the worst case, you only expected death. Because the mothers had the feeling that their dead children would no longer suffer.”

Hunger was another constant.

Bianca says that before the end the war children even ate grass, if they could find it.

“There was a fascist government at the time of Mussolini, and each family, according to the number of children he had, received a piece of bread. There was a car with coupons, you went to the store and, according to the coupons you had, they gave you a slice of bread,” he says.

“When there was water, at that time, the children ran to the source, because the bread soaked in water expanded.”

That misery would transcend the fall of the regime. And the doctor of the town, Mario del Santo, would bring the good news: the possibility of a trip that could get the children out of their precarious situation.

They should only take a train to the north.

Teresa Noce, one of the leading figures of the Italian Communist Party was one of the promoters of this solidarity campaign.

“The requests came from everywhere. There were many hungry children. The weather was becoming cold and humid, and there was no coal. There were many unfortunate cases. The children slept in sawdust boxes to warm up, without sheets or blankets. (…) dirty children, full of scabs and lice,” he said about the project, according to the project, according to the mill.

The idea of ​​”the trains of happiness” was born in Milan in the hand she and the union of Italian women and became a reality with the support of those who, from different locations, were willing to receive thousands of children.

The city of Reggio Emilia was the first to offer to host 2,000 children, then followed by Parma, Piacenza, Modena, Bologna and Ravenna.

The first train, with 1,800 children, left on December 16, 1945 from Milan to Reggio Emilia.

And it would be the first of many. In later years, the initiative was extended throughout Italy – with special emphasis on the south, where Bianca lived – with the joint help of different civil and political organizations.

Like many mothers, Bianca's mother saw in the “trains of happiness” an opportunity to give their children a better life.

A 1947 day she prepared her and her younger sister, Ana María, to undertake the trip.

“My mother sent me a little dress. And I wore sandals that were made of cardboard.”

At the train station, Bianca remembers that children suffered from the farewell.

“Even train workers cried, because children did not want to separate from their mothers. But mothers let them leave with the hope of a better future, of a different reality for them,” he says.

Bianca remembers that train trip: “For the first time I saw trees, houses, villas, that passed quickly. That feeling caught me completely.”

“I thought the train did not exist, I had never seen it,” he recalls with a laugh.

The now octogenarian says that her face and that of her sister finished black because of the soot that sneaked through that window from which her eyes could not take off.

But then something unexpected happened.

“Thirty children got out in Belluno, but I didn't realize that my sister was one of them.”

When Bianca woke up he just realized that his sister was no longer next to him.

“And I cried a lot for Ana María, because my mother had entrusted her with care. But I was also little.”

They would not see them again for many years.

After more than 700 kilometers traveled, the rain received Bianca and other dozens of children who arrived that day in Mestre.

Their cardboard sandals were ready for the effect of water.

The night had not been easy for her or for the other little ones traveling on the train.

“All these children spent the night in the trains without their parents, with fear that the communists ate their hands, because the priest of my people told us: 'They should not go to Mestre, because the communists eat their hands to the children.'”

The caregivers who were traveling on the train gave them something hot upon arrival, while the families who had decided to adopt a boy or girl began to appear.

It was not necessarily rich families. According to experts who have studied the issue, families who welcomed children were rather of workers' homes. And, although they had a better situation with respect to that of the southern peasants, they did not have money left over.

“A lady, who was called Rosa, approached me and said: 'What a beautiful girl, what's your name?'” Recalls Bianca.

“He tried to be kind and sweet so that I was not afraid. He said: 'Do you want to come with me? We have animals, ducks, a cat, a dog …'. And he took me by the hand.”

Bianca undertook the trip to his new house with Rosa and Luigi, who began to call “aunt” and “uncle.”

Upon arrival, he realized that what they had told him was true.

“There was a dog, a cat, and newborn bunnies … all that distraction was good for me, because I didn't think about anything else.”

“I saw that beautiful and clean house, with water on the table, polenta, bread, napkins … things I had never seen in my life. I ate a lot. I ate too much.”

The four months that Bianca lived with Rosa and Luigi flew. And it was time to return.

“I cried, cried, shouted, I didn't want to return with my mother. I had to return, because the rule was that after four months we had to return with our families. But I didn't want to come back. And it wasn't just me; all children cried because they didn't want to return to Salerno.”

Bianca was not the only one who resisted his departure. Rosa and Luigi had fond with her to the point that they didn't want to let her go.

But the girl returned with her mother.

It would not be long before Luigi made the decision to go looking for her and do your best so that Bianca's mother let her adopt her and take her back with them.

“When I saw Luigi, I clung to her hand and I didn't release her. I didn't let out that hand until we returned to Mestre.”

Bianca lived a totally different life from the one in Salerno.

He was at his new parents until he turned 21, when he married.

The history of the “trains of happiness” has been rescued in various research and books.

Viola Ardone's novel, “The Children's Train” (2019), which tells the life of a little one who was welcomed by another family, was taken to the screen by Netflix in a homonymous film last year.

*With information from Natasha Fernandes and the Witness History team.

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