TEHRAN (IBNA) -- A book by Italian journalist, historian, and writer Indro Montanelli (1909-2001) ‎‎’General della Rovere’ based on a true story revealing the fascist acts during World War ‎II has been rendered into Persian and published. ‎
The short novel was the base of a feature film made by leading Italian film director Roberto Rossellini in 1959. ‘General della Rovere’ book has been translated into Persian by veteran Iranian translator of books on cinema Vazrik Dersahakian. Tehran-based No (New) Publishing has released the work in 96 pages.
When Montanelli was arrested in February 1944, he was incarcerated among political prisoners in the San Vittore prison. There he got to know, for a short time, General Fortebraccio Della Rovere. Only after the war, it became known that the man was in reality Giovanni Bertoni, a poor swindler, thief and cheater, used by the Germans as a spy, then discovered as such, and then shot by the Germans together with others in the Fossoli camp in 1944.
Montanelli starts from these autobiographical traces to tell the story of Bertone, who extorts money from the families of the Nazi-fascist prisoners, boasting of being able to free and return their loved ones home by paying bribes to German soldiers.
The German colonel Müller, asks for Bertone’s help promising him in exchange to free him if he could discover the names of the leaders of the Resistance. In prison, Bertone meets the other inmates and plays the role of the aristocratic family general with great dignity.
In fact, the political prisoners really confuse the impostor for a natural leader, perfectly identified with his character: with a monocle, his nails manicured, his beard always shaved. It is precisely his attitude, guardian of the ideals of the Risorgimento, and contemptuous of the Germans, that gives courage to the other unfortunate comrades in prison.
Montanelli was one of the fifty World Press Freedom Heroes according to the International Press Institute.