Alfonso and Aziade were the children of  Suleiman (Suli) and Marianne Gabai; Enrico was son of Dilber Gabai-Perez. In circa 1940 when the Italian Racial Laws were enacted, Alfonso and Aziade were, as Jews, excluded from school as well as other social activities. Alfonso, then aged fourteen, was so upset that he committed suicide by effecting entry to the school laboratories and taking poison. His sister Aziade, now Aziade Gabai-Cevidalli, survived the war hidden in a convent by nuns. Enrico was saved from deportation by his Spanish passport. The Gabai family were Sephardim, still regarded themselves as Spanish, and in 1919 Enrico's mother had put her nationality as Spanish on a passport application.

 

Aziade's husband, Bruno Cevidalli, with his brother Guido, escaped from prison where they were being held prior to deportation. They were hidden in the mountains by partisans, and when the Americans arrived in 1944 Bruno who spoke English became a liaison officer for the US Army. After the war he became a successful lawyer in Milan and his brother Guido became a chemistry professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.