The Old Giovinezza

In Bari, on southern Italy's Adriatic coast, touring American Expatriate Josephine Baker, song and dance artist, called for amateur singers and dancers from the audience to compete for a special prize--a chocolate egg. Among those who volunteered was Federico Covella, 25. "I know only Giovinezza and can sing nothing else," he informed Miss Baker. Carefree and gracious, the mistress of ceremonies waved him on, bid the orchestra to strike up the tune.

As Covella broke into song at the top of his voice, many in the audience of 4,000 applauded loudly, though here & there some boos were audible. A front-row group of youths wearing the badge of Italy's neo-fascist M.S.I, party rose with shouts of "Bravo! Bravo" and joined in the singing of the onetime official Fascist hymn. Singer Baker looked on perplexed, then with dawning embarrassment. By the time Covella reached the final chorus--"and for Benito Mussolini, hooray, hooray, a la la"--the police had rushed from the back of the theater, stormed the stage and bound him with handcuffs. The defiant singer was hustled off to jail under a postwar law against "defense of fascism."

The authorities said that Covella was a staunch Fascist who had once been sentenced to death by an Allied court; because of his youth, the sentence was commuted to 30 years. He had recently been released under a new Italian amnesty. Josephine Baker, 43, who holds the French Medal of Resistance for having helped Free French intelligence service during the war, hastily explained to the local police boss: "Believe me, sir, I thought Giovinezza was the title of a student song. I never thought he was a conspirator."

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