After the 1938 "Anschluss" with Germany, he escaped to Italy. There is no notice if he had obtained his certificate in medicine, because literature and poetry were more attractive to him. His staying in Italy he described as a very productive time for his poetry. At the beginning of the World War II he attempted to join the French Army in Basel as a volunteer but failed to do this. During World World II, he escaped the attention of the Fascist regime by leaving no "paper trail" (identity card, ration card, etc.). He survived by trading his medical services for food and shelter. His leisure hours were spent in the Vatican library, reading texts in Latin until it became a colloquial language to him. He met his second wife, Andrietta Arborio di Gattinara from a noble Italian family, in 1942. His brother Károly presumably died in 1944 in a Nazi labour camp (Arbeitslager) while his sister settled in England. After the end of the War, his second son, Giovanni Sebastiano, was born in Rome.