THE CHARACTER OF THE WEEK
ERBESTEIN
It was the soul of the Grande Torino. His is a history of sport, war, persecution and cruel fate. Ernesto Erbstein Egri, Hungarian Jewish origin, technical director of the Torino 1938 to 1939 and from 1946 to 1949, found in football the realization of ideals that were the antithesis of fascism: honesty, loyalty, generosity and mutual aid. Erbstein, his wife Yolanda and their two daughters, Susanna and Martha were Roman Catholic, but that made them immune from discrimination in Italy as a result of racial laws was under anyone of Jewish origin. "My father used to say that there is one God and you can pray in many ways, all valid," he says today his daughter Susanna, world-renowned choreographer and owner in Turin of the prestigious Centre for the Study of Dance and Iolanda Susanna Egri, "The important thing is to keep the commandments and be the right people, loyal, honest. I think this was our family. "In order not to subject his family the trauma of persecution, Erbstein anticipate events and decides to leave Italy to Hungary, he left in 1924. In Budapest, he graduated at the Institute of Physical Education and began his career as a footballer in the team's local Bak, also earning the international call-up. Football, however, not lived, could only be practiced by amateurs. To stay was the stockbroker. However, when this type of profession Hungary was not thought profitable to emigrate without ever forgetting his true calling: football. At first he wanted to emigrate to the U.S., where he stayed in 1926 by playing in Brooklyn Wanderers, who offered him a ingaggio.La wife Yolanda, but did not like moving away from Europe and its affections, and so chose Erbstein Italy permanently. Here he had some contacts and found space to continue to practice football. He played the first Olympus River, then in Vicenza. Just thirty years became coach in 1928, starting with Bari and then move in the year following Nocerina, making her just before arriving in the group of Campania, First Division. A Nocera left an indelible memory that both have dedicated a street. But the consecration came with the Lucchese . In just three seasons, led the team to the Series C Series A, which in 1938 won a great seventh place. In the wake of these successes, in 1938, was named to coach the Turin by Ferruccio Novo, industrial Turin and ex-footballer grenade, recently elected president of the company. "It was an extremely good coach," says the daughter, " his business with the Lucchese was memorable. Football in Italy just became his profession very much and we lived this reality. I can say grew up on the football field. "Erbstein was a great innovator. His vision of football was the perfect combination of his studies in physical education and its diverse cultural heritage, ranging from literature to philosophy. From education physical drew particular attention to the evaluation of the athletes and their physical reactions to stress. Based on this analysis first introduced the Pre heating, the use of vitamins and very modern athletic training programs. "It was hard," says Raf Vallone, in 1938 player of the Grande Torino, in an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport in January 1995. "We did repeat the movements until the nausea, his body tilted forward. Then he redoubled his training: in addition to those introduced compulsory free ones. So most of you stopped to perfect your technique. Then, still in Philadelphia, built a wall along ten meters, so as to allow the players to practice and reinforce weak shot. Erbstein conquered us by example. While suffering from a terrible sciatica, in the rain or snow was always there with us. Even then exploited the side bands, made even the living area of \u200b\u200bthe corner, we did apply a sort of total football. Every time one of our had the ball, the other fellow had to move so as to give not one but three different ways. Once a week there was that we called "killing time". Kept us in the locker room, he made drawings on the blackboard and explained to us how we should move in the field. His strict discipline taught me to live and be with other values \u200b\u200bimportant to work in theater. "In the work of Ernesto Erbstein also had a lot of space psychology. Urged his players with slogans like "Courage more sweat, more calmly, the same recipe for victory." His inspiration was the Dutch philosopher Johan Huizinga (1872-1945), author of the essay in 1938 Homo Ludens, in which he examined the role of play in the law, war, science, poetry, philosophy and art. Huizinga argued that the instinct of the game was at the root of human culture and all its activities. "He was always on hand this book to Huizinga," recalls her daughter "to him the football, the game in general, was part of a whole human being. He was able to stop the street to watch the kids playing football just because he was interested to see the relationship between them and the ball. " All of these capabilities and rich culture in fascist not availed nothing when the regime enacted racial laws in the autumn of 1938, which put the Jews on the margins of society. "This new reality provoked in me a tremendous shock. I was Italian in every respect and I had no knowledge Jewish origin of the family, "says Susanna Egri," I often went to church to pray. From the documents of my father was the source of my Jewish family and that was enough to upset the suddenly our lives. " Erbstein at first attempted an escape with the help of Turin. The solution was designed to exchange his position as coach in society grenade with his friend Molnar, Rotterdam engineer, who was willing to take his place in Italy waiting for better times. "We left together to go to Rotterdam, but the border between Germany and the Netherlands we waited for a nasty surprise," says Susanna Egri. "The Dutch nullified our very regular visa without explanation and not let us enter. We found ourselves stranded in Kleve near Düsseldorf in the middle of Nazi Germany, which were already in force the racial laws and the Jews were forced to move with the yellow star sewn on their clothes, a symbol that also includes the buildings in which they were obliged to live. My father with the help of Torino tried to get new visas, but there was nothing to do. For reasons still obscure to me, we drove back to the Dutch border and so we decided to go to Budapest, where we had to compromise for strength and where they lived the father of my father and his brothers, who gave us hospitality. "Erbstein found himself having to still work to change and chose an area unknown to him, but to which he adapted very quickly, that the importation of textile products from Italy. Fared very well thanks to some friends and meanwhile kept in touch by correspondence with the President of the Torino Ferruccio Novo, who could not do without his advice. He also made several trips to Italy, during which players viewed to be provided for the purchase to Novo. Loik and Mazzola were purchased thanks to its segnalazioni.In Erbstein the short time they reached a certain economic welfare and, although not part of the Jewish community, had many Jewish friends who were in Budapest predominant part of the cultural elite. Their relatively quiet life went on until March of 1944 when the Germans occupied by tanks in the Hungarian capital. "began with the imposing yellow star to all who had even a single ancestor jew. The streets were seen as those grotesque images of nuns with the yellow star on his chest, "says Mrs. Egri," my life soon becomes very risky. He was ordained to all Jewish girls aged between 16 and 25 years to present a collection point. I refused, knowing that it was dangerous. I managed to hide thanks to Hungarian friends in a hostel for Catholic girls, where they produced military uniforms. This institution, under protection of the Vatican, had become, at the initiative of its director Klinda father, a shelter for girls in my situation, that Catholics of Jewish origin. I brought my mother and my younger sister so that we can be together. My father was transferred to a forced labor camp on the outskirts of Budapest. It was intended to work as the transport of heavy tracks. " "From there," Susan continues, "could have permission to leave so we came to visit. The situation was unstable, however, and even there the security was not guaranteed. In the fall of 1944 when the Allied bombing raged, the Hungarian Arrow Cross stormed the building. Drunk, armed to the teeth, militiamen gathered us all in a single room. It was Sunday, a day of visits, a unique opportunity to take a prisoner who had also come there occasionally. Get many calls from relatives and militia were coming in the office of director who were called to the phone and forced them to say "come and see us" in order to get more people to catch. At one point even called me on the phone. I went there, surrounded by heavily armed militants, I demanded: "Tell them to come here now because there's a party." On the phone was a buddy of my father, who phoned to warn that the day my father had not been allowed to come and visit us. I replied in a tone of voice changed a bit 'a fool so as to give rise to suspicions in my partner. I reached my goal. That gentleman was alarmed and advised my father to call me immediately. So he did. They called me back to the phone and I redid the same play speaking in Hungarian, but adding in Italian at a very low voice: "Help "».«" I understood everything, do not worry!" He promptly replied Dad. Meanwhile, the Arrow Cross we lined up and made us go out on foot outside the palace. We did not know where they took us, but we feel clearly to be led to his death. At one point we stopped for a long time without understanding what was going on until they let us retrace our steps. At the age his father was waiting for us that Klinda told us that thanks to the alarm which I made my father had contacted the Apostolic Nuncio to ask him to intervene with the Hungarian authorities and call for compliance with the protection of the Vatican on the pensioner. The Nuncio had personally telephoned the Minister of the Interior and that they had obtained the Arrow Cross ordered to vacate. In that place but we could not stay. The Arrow Cross would certainly go back to the office. We dug a hole under the barbed wire and fled the family home of my mother, who was Aryan and stayed there until the end of the war. My father, however, escaped from the camp fled secretly working with us, but not for long. I realized time for an informer who had informed the Arrow Cross of his presence and was able to accompany him to the consulate by Raul Wallenberg of Sweden, where many Jews had found refuge and where he remained until the arrival of the Soviets. "Ernesto Erbstein In 1946, during the War had changed his surname of German origin in Magyar Egri, returned with his wife and daughters in Turin, where he anxiously awaited the Commendatore Novo, who gave him the job of technical director. "The passion for football helped him to regain his peace of mind during the terrible experiences of war. The values \u200b\u200bin which he believed came out even stronger and he had grown up in the will to work for others and to teach honesty, loyalty, generosity, "says Susanna Egri," For the team took on a role "almost paternal". " He lived constantly with the team: training schedule also of Spring, established the diet, distributed the roles within the team, spoke with all of their problems. He was gifted with a charisma as a conductor. The President of Novo did not do anything without the backing of my father. He had total confidence in his competence and his integrity. Of course not everyone loved her. Who excels always arouses envy and so was attacked by stupid political questions. Someone accused him of being a communist just because he made some trips back and forth from Hungary. Answered publicly in an article titled "I'm not a spy." Only in 1948 the family finally reunited Egri in Turin. Egri home soon became a reference point for exiles and exiled Hungarians, who received hospitality. The serenity found in the technical director of the Grande Torino and his family did not last long.
On 4 May 1949 died in the accident 
Superga air with the team he loved so much. "Twenty years I was head of household. Life became very hard. Then I was prima ballerina at the Opera in Florence and I had to interrupt their careers to move to Turin, but then I was able to continue, "the daughter says," I have set up classical and contemporary dance choreographed for television, who was born in those years, I founded the school that I run today. I left my father's two things. The first is the frequent habit of organizing unconscious of eleven ballet dancers as a football team. The second is an object that I always carry with me a little doll Portuguese. I found it in his suitcase after the Superga tragedy. He had bought it in Portugal as a gift. It is his posthumous gift, the most expensive item I have, my good luck charm. "
of Gabriele Eschenazi
With the chairmanship of Eng. Della Santina, Erbestein occupied the bench of the Lucchese for eight seasons, from 1930-31 to 1936-37, winning three championships (1932/33 - 1933/34 and 1935/36 until the conquest of the Serie A, 1936-37.
Allard 1949-50 
