Mario Capecchi was born in the Italian city of Verona in 1937. His father, Luciano Capecchi, was an Italian airman who was reported as missing in action in the Western Desert Campaign. His mother, Lucy Ramberg, was the American-born daughter of Impressionist painter Lucy Dodd Ramberg and German archaeologist Walter Ramberg. During World War II, his mother was sent to the Dachau concentration camp, as punishment for handing out pamphlets and belonging to an anti-Fascist group. Before her arrest she had sold her belongings and gave the money to a poor family near Bolzano, to give her son a place to live. After a year, the money was spent and the family was unable to care for him. At four-and-a-half years old he was left to live on the streets of northern Italy for the next four years, living in various orphanages and roving through towns with groups of other homeless children.