Wayne County Life

Apr 19 – Aldo Villagrossi: On Saturday, April 19 at 2:00 PM, Aldo Villagrossi at Books, ETC. Aldo is also a writer, musician, husband, father, and businessman. He has translated the book, The Girl From Sighet from English into Italian, La ragazza di Sighet. This is the story of Hindi Rothbart, a holocaust survivor. The translation is now famous throughout Italy and was honored with the 2013 book of rememberance award. There is a twist to the story. During WWII, Adolfo Villagrossi, Aldo's uncle, was forced into the fascist Italian military. He never supported Mussolini nor adopted the beliefs. Secretly he and others plotted against the fascist. His group of soldiers were on a mission in Hungary where they stayed in the village of Sighet. Among the soldiers, there were many musicians and they played in the homes of Jewish families there in Sighet. Adolfo met Hindi during this situation and they fell in love. The war however took its toll. Hindi and her family were captured by the Germans and placed in Auschwitz. Despite attempts by Adolfo to have her family released, she was not freed until the Russians entered. And then even more abuse was experienced. Hindi eventually made it to the US and lived until last year in California. She thought Adolfo had died during the war. Hindi married into the Friedman family. (Pure coincidence that my name is the same). Adolfo passed away in the early 90's never having known that Hindi had survived. The Villagrossi family had known that Adolfo had fallen in love during the war years but they did not have the name to trace. One day, not that many years ago, Aldo google searched his uncles name. It came up as a character in Hindi's book. He reached out to her and was befriended by Hindi and P'nenah Goldstein who assisted Hindi with the writing. They agreed to allow Aldo to translate the story. Besides coming to setup the business here in Rochester, Aldo will also be looking to do readings from the book. This event is free and open to the public. Meet at Books, ETC. 78 W. Main St., Macedon NY. For more information call John Cieslinski at 585-474-4116 or email books_etc@yahoo.com.

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