Two Suitcases Full of Nothing

Hugo left Maserada di Piave, a small village in the Veneto region, with two suitcases decently lled with nothing. From there, he embarked on a journey in the course of which he learned, loved, discovered, worked, and studied. He navigated the turbulent waters of history, becoming part of it and shaping his life to the events of the world.
His journey took him through the province of Treviso of the WWII years, through a Europe that was rising again after the war, through the democratic effervescence of the New York of the 1960s, through the Milan of the ‘years of lead’, that was later to become the ‘Milan to drink’ and drowned in the Mani Pulite corruption scandal.
Throughout this journey, Hugo encountered both extraordinary and very ordinary people, and of all of them he always managed to capture the essence.
The epic of history has accompanied his own personal story, transforming him from an Italian waiter to an international banker.
Nothing of Hugo has stayed the same, except for his smile: the smile he had on his face when he came to us to tell his life story is exactly the same as he had when he was riding his bicycle to school down the dusty roads of his homeland.