Grandma Was A Spy

A TV Series
by
DANNY ANTONELLI

A semi-fictional TV Series
which ties together the past and the present
in an exciting series of stories with
Milena
in the middle of the action.

Season 1, Episode 1: A knock on the door
Tells the story of what happens during the train journey to Rome and what happens when the SS Officers she met on the train knock on her mother’s door.
Season 1, Episode 2: Run for your life
Tells the story of Milena, the champion athlete during the fascist era in Italy, before the war, and how her athletic skills save her life.
Season 1, Episode 3: Shakespeare in Berlin
Tells the story of Milena in Berlin and her spying activities, with Shakespeare’s Complete Works as the code key.
Season 1, Episode 4: Milena’s Inferno
Tells the story of friends and lovers lost to the war.
Season 1, Episode 5: A glimpse of hope
Tells the story of her involvement in Operation Crossword and the negotiations in Switzerland between the Germans and the Allies to end the war.
Season 1, Episode 6: Il Duce
Tells the story of what happened when Milena met Mussolini in Gardone, shortly before he was captured and killed.

Berlin, October 1943. The Italian government has capitulated. Mussolini has been arrested. All non-essential personnel are being evacuated from the Italian Embassy in Berlin. Because of constant bombing by the Allies, trains are delayed and re-routed. A journey which took one day now takes a week. Milena gets on the train. She enters her compartment. Two young SS Officers in full uniform sit there. They stare at her suspiciously. Then they look at each other, smile and stand up. One takes her suitcase and puts it in the rack. The other offers her a seat. Her face is expressionless. Milena sits down. The blond SS Officer asks: “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
Milena smiles. “Aber natürlich!” she replies.
“And where are you going?”
“Back home, to Rome.”
What they don’t know, and what we will discover during this long train journey, is that Milena is Jewish, and that she was recruited as a spy by the British in 1935 while she was at university in Rome studying English.
When The Pact of Steel, known formally as the Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy, was signed on May 22, 1939, she was instructed by her spy-masters to switch her language studies to German and apply for a job at the Italian Foreign Ministry.
A few months later, World War II broke out.
In 1941, she was was sent to Berlin to work at the Italian Embassy.

The train journey from Berlin to Rome will serve as the starting point for the stories about Milena’s adventures as a spy during the war and after.
Each episode is 44-48 minutes long.
We will also learn about Milena’s personal history, growing up in Umbria, on her grandfather’s farm, her career as a champion athlete, her recruitment as a spy, and her post-war adventures.

Grandma Was A Spy

A TV Series
by
DANNY ANTONELLI