A "Conspiracy of Goodness"
What followed has been called a "conspiracy of goodness."(n1) The conspiracy involved the entire population of Secchiano--six hundred citizens. For more than a year the villagers hid the Fullenbaums during a series of raids by Nazi soldiers. While hiding and unable to work, the Fullenbaums' money ran out. The townspeople fed, clothed, and housed the family. When the Nazis arrested the village priest for harboring other Jewish fugitives and deported him to a concentration camp, the people of Secchiano still stood by the Fullenbaums.
"Their presence was a matter of public knowledge and private pride," according to Holocaust scholar Eva Fogelman.(n2) When Nazi soldiers began house-to-house searches, the Fullenbaums were taken from their hiding place on the second floor of the schoolhouse and brought out to the fields to be passed off as farmworkers. When the soldiers rounding up Jews came to the fields to interrogate the workers, they were told that the Fullenbaums were deaf-mutes. That kept the Jewish family's German accents from giving them away. Eventually, the villagers of Secchiano helped the Fullenbaums escape to British-held territory.