In Rome, drawings made in a church evoke memories of a Jewish and anti-fascist refuge

The Church of San Gioacchino in Rome is full of intricate frescoes, mosaics and stained glass, but perhaps its real masterpieces are the charcoal wall drawings hidden in its attic.

These drawings were made by one of 35 men - including Jews, anti-fascist Christians and military defectors - who were hidden in the attic during the Nazi occupation of Rome in World War II, some for six month.

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Father Ezio Marcelli discovered the drawings in 1984, forty years after Allied soldiers liberated Rome from Nazi occupiers in June 1944. He remembers hearing from an older priest that people had been hidden in the church for the war and began looking for clues in the parish archives.

,” he said.

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"What happened here, of people being persecuted, hunted down to be sentenced to death, still has real significance today

," continued the father.

Despite his 90 years, Ezio Marcelli fearlessly climbs the exterior spiral staircase that leads to the attic.

," he said, leading visitors through a secret passageway that was once walled up to conceal the people inside. possible Nazi raids.

A general view of the attic of the San Gioacchino church, where 35 people hid during the Nazi occupation of Rome between 1943 and 1944. YARA NARDI / REUTERS

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A presumed portrait of one of the fugitives

The three larger-than-life drawings on the walls, done in charcoal, show Jesus with a crown of thorns, a Madonna and child, and a modern man sitting in a simple chair with his head in his hands.

This is probably the portrait of one of the fugitives.

Although they are unsigned, Father Ezio Marcelli said they were almost certainly made by Luigi de Simone, as the archives also contained sketches on sheets of paper signed by him.

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He also found an old pack of cigarettes, playing cards, matches, an empty wine bottle and a copy of a Rome newspaper from 1944 containing an anti-Semitic article, a time capsule from one of the most dark of Italy.

The men were in hiding between November 3, 1943 and June 7, 1944. A convent of nuns across the street housed the women.

Father Ezio Marcelli, 90, shows a crossword he discovered in the attic of the San Gioacchino church.

YARA NARDI / REUTERS

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Secret pact and light signals

Fugitives entered and left the attic through a rose window, usually under cover of darkness.

The interior entrance to the attic was walled off to prevent them from being discovered.

Through the window, they received food, clothing and handed over their waste to their protectors, who included a priest, a nun and several lay parish members.

Notes to and from family members were transmitted through a small hole in the ceiling.

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Everyone involved swore a secret pact and devised a system of beacon lights to urge the men to remain silent in the event of a possible raid by the Nazis, who were targeting religious institutions.

In 1995, Israel honored the parish's wartime pastor, Father Antonio Dressino, and his lay sexton, Pietro Lestini, as

for saving Jews.