Listen Now: Pack One Bag featuring Stanley Tucci
09:27 Share

Hey, I'm David Modigliani, popping in here to let you know about a new limited series from Lemonada we think you're going to enjoy. It's a show I made with Stanley Tucci called Pack One Bag, and the best way to tell you about it is just to share the trailer with you right now. When Benito Mussolini led a violent insurrection to take over government buildings across Italy, he was on his way to becoming a dictator.

And eventually his fascist regime went after people like my family, who'd been living there for centuries. I mean, all of a sudden, we were not safe in our own country. It was very clear to me it was time to leave. But my only way out would be to leave my whole family behind. I mean, do you stay or do you flee? Stay or flee?

My name is David Modigliani, and that's the question at the heart of my new limited series podcast, Pack One Bag. The show centers on my grandfather, my nonno Franco. One day, he'd win the Nobel Prize. But back in 1938, he was just a 20-year-old kid in Rome. And when Mussolini passed racial laws against Jews like him, he didn't know what to do.

But I was in love with this girl from Bologna. Franco, I have a name, Serena, that's me. And her parents had been moving money outside the country. In case we had to flee. But escaping with them would mean leaving his whole family to face the nightmare that was coming. It was the biggest decision of my life. We each packed one bag and we left.

In Pack One Bag, I dig into my grandparents' romance on the run. We made it onto the last boat out of Europe. And the hidden side of their escape from fascism. Some of these boxes I literally had not opened ever.

What I find takes me back to Italy to uncover the story of the family they left behind. Ciao Enrico! Hey! This is how beautiful you are. The woman from the neighborhood says to me, they are looking for you. You go out, go out. It's too dangerous. Now I bring the whole story to life with the help of Signore Stanley Tucci. Of course it's crazy. This is what war does.

Pack One Bag drops on June 5th, so follow Pack One Bag today to catch every twist and turn. It's signed directly Benito Mussolini. It says vostro. Yours. This is a letter from Benito Mussolini.

If you're ready to check out the show, just search for Pack One Bag in your podcast app and dive right in. Or if you'd like to hear a little more, we're excited to share a clip from the beginning of episode one right here in this feed. After you listen, just search for Pack One Bag to hear the rest of the episode. You can also find a link in the show notes that will take you right there. Here's the opening of 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. 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 definitely is 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, Despite what his mother country put him through, Nonno 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. 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 captured 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 nonni 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 nonni 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, si. My name is Serena Calabi Modigliani, and yes, I'm agreeing to these interviews and to showing you these letters your nonno 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 with

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, weren't you?

So that I wouldn't be able to look my grandchildren in the eye. Like the nudes in the Sistine Chapel. But the dead don't... 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 cannot resist no more, you flee.

My name is David Modigliani, and this is Pack One Bag, 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 1, The Fairytale Escape. ♪