Champion Cyclist Against the Nazis

The true story of the Tour de France winner who cycled all over Mussolini’s Italy in a secret quest to rescue hundreds of Jewish lives.

Cyclist Gino Bartali won the Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) three times and the Tour de France twice. But these weren’t his only achievements.

Deeply religious, Bartali quietly agreed during the dark years of fascist rule to work with the Resistance and pass messages and papers from one end of the country to the other. Despite the dangers, Bartali used his training as a pretext to criss-cross Italy, hiding documents in the handlebars and saddle of his bicycle, hoping each time he was searched that they wouldn’t think to disassemble his machine.

As a result of his bravery, eight hundred Jews—including numerous children—were saved from deportation. In this book, Alberto Toscano shares the incredible story of this great sportsman, recognized as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” by Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Memorial after his death in Florence in 2000, and recounts a story of humble heroism, real-life suspense, and twentieth-century European history.

“An informative testament to the kinds of risks and sacrifices [of] the anti-Nazis in Mussolini’s Italy during World War II . . . an extraordinary story of an extraordinary man in extraordinary times.” —Midwest Book Review