Giorgio Perlasca

Giorgio Perlasca (31 January 1910, in Como – 15 August 1992, in Padua) was an Italian businessman and former fascist who, with the collaboration of official diplomats, posed as the Spanish consul-general to Hungary in the winter of 1944, and saved 5,218 Jews from deportation to Nazi extermination camps in eastern Europe.

Giorgio Perlasca was born in Como and grew up in Maserà, province of Padua, Italy. During the 1920s, he became a supporter of Fascism, fighting in East Africa during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, and in the Spanish Civil War for the Nationalist Corpo Truppe Volontarie.As a gratitude safe conduct for his service in Spain, he was awarded a diplomatic mission from Francisco Franco.

Perlasca grew disillusioned with Fascism, in particular due to Benito Mussolini's alliance with Nazism and adoption of the Italian Racial Laws, that came into force in 1938.

During the initial phase of World War II, he worked at procuring supplies for the Italian Army in the Balkans. He was later appointed as an official delegate of the Italian government with diplomatic status and sent to Eastern Europe with the mission of buying meat for the Italian army fighting on the Russian front. On 8 September 1943, Italy surrendered to the Allied forces. Italians had to choose whether to join Benito Mussolini's newly formed Italian Social Republic, which was fascist, or stay loyal to the King and join the Allies' side. Perlasca chose the latter.

In Budapest, he was arrested and confined to a castle reserved for diplomats. After a few months, he used a medical pass that allowed him to travel within Hungary and he requested political asylum at the Spanish Embassy. He took advantage of his status as a veteran of the Spanish war. He adopted the first name of "Jorge" and, since Spain was neutral in the war, he became a free man.

Perlasca worked with the Spanish Chargé d'Affaires, Ángel Sanz Briz, and other diplomats of neutral states to smuggle Jews out of Hungary. The system he devised consisted of furnishing 'protection cards' which placed Jews under the guardianship of various neutral states. He helped Jews find refuge in protected houses under the control of various embassies, which had extraterritorial conventions that gave them an equivalent to sovereignty. They could provide asylum for Jews.

When Sanz Briz was removed from Hungary to Switzerland in November 1944, he invited Perlasca to accompany him to safety. However, Perlasca chose to remain in Hungary. The Hungarian government ordered the Spanish Embassy building and the extraterritorial houses where the Jews took refuge to be cleared out. Perlasca immediately made the false announcement that Sanz Briz was due to return from a short leave, and that he had been appointed his deputy for the meantime. Throughout the winter, Perlasca was active in hiding, shielding and feeding thousands of Jews in Budapest. He continued issuing safe conduct passes (initiated by Sanz Briz), on the basis of a Spanish law passed in 1924 that granted citizenship to Jews of Sephardic origin (descendants of Iberian Jews expelled from Spain in the late 15th century).

In December 1944, Perlasca rescued two boys from being herded onto a freight train in defiance of a German lieutenant colonel on the scene. The Swedish diplomat-rescuer Raoul Wallenberg, also present there, later told Perlasca that the officer who had challenged him was Adolf Eichmann. During 45 days periodfrom 1 December 1944 to 16 January 1945, Perlasca helped save more than 5,000 Jews, about four times more than saved by Oskar Schindler.

According to Perlasca, he also prevented the execution of a plan to demolish the Budapest Ghetto with around 60,000 people in it, as the Nazis had done in Warsaw. While Perlasca was posing as the Spanish consul-general, he learned of the intentions of the SS and Arrow Cross to destroy the ghetto. Shocked and incredulous, he asked for a direct hearing with the Hungarian interior minister, Gábor Vajna, and threatened him with legal and economic measures against the "3,000 Hungarian citizens" (in fact, a much smaller number) declared by Perlasca as residents of Spain, unless he withdrew the plan. Perlasca also offered to help Vajna and his family escape from Hungary before the advancing Soviet Army reached Budapest. The plan to raze the Budapest Ghetto was subsequently cancelled.

After the war, Perlasca returned to Italy. He did not talk about his actions in Hungary to anyone, including his family, and lived a quiet, humble life. In 1987, a group of Hungarian Jews whom he had saved finally found him after searching for him for 42 years in Spain. There was publicity at the time, and Perlasca became noted for his heroic deeds. Enrico Deaglio wrote an account of his remarkable heroism, Banality of Goodness, (2002), which became a bestseller. The book was adapted as a made-for-TV film, Perlasca – Un eroe Italiano (2005), by the RAI national television corporation.

Giorgio Perlasca died of a heart attack in 1992.

• In 1987 Perlasca was made an honorary citizen of Israel and was honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum with a stele and a10,000 tree forest.
• Perlasca was designated by Israel as a Righteous Among the Nations in 1989 for his efforts
• Star of Merit, Hungary, 1989
• Knesset Medal, Israel, 1989
• Town Seal of Padova, Italy, 1989
• Wallenberg Medal, United States, 1990
• Medal of Remembrance of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, USA, 1990
• Invitation to lay the first stone of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, USA, 1990
• Knight Grand Cross, Spain, 1991
• 1st Class, Knight Grand Cross (Italy), 1991
• Gold Medal for Civil Bravery (Italy), 1992
• A bust of Perlasca was created in Budapest.
• As part of its Righteous Among the Nations project, the Raanana Symphonette Orchestra commissioned an original orchestral piece, "His Finest Hour", from composer Moshe Zorman in tribute to Perlasca. The piece premiered December 10, 2014 in Raanana in the presence of Perlasca's son Franco and daughter-in-law Luciana Amadia.

Places

• Inside Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Garden (Dohàny street 2)
• Giorgio Perlasca Kereskedelmi, Vendéglátóipari Szakközépiskola és Szakiskola (Giorgio Perlasca Highschool)

Movies

• Perlasca – Un eroe Italiano (2005)
• El ángel de Budapest

Songs

• Sandy Cash: Giorgio Perlasca

• David Ben Reuven: The Rescuers

Stamps

• Italian stamp of 2010

• Giorgio Perlasca, L'impostore, 2007, Il Mulino. ISBN 9788815060891 (Perlasca's memorial, published posthumously)

Budapest 1944-45: L’incredibile storia dei “Giusti” nel corso della tragedia della Shoah (Attualità e storia Amazon)