Giorgio Perlasca (31 January 1910 – 15 August 1992) was an Italian businessman. With the collaboration of official diplomats, he 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. In 1989, Perlasca was designated by Israel as a Righteous Among the Nations.

Early life

Perlasca was born in Como and grew up in Maserà, province of Padua, Italy. During the 1920s, he became a supporter of Italian 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 Italian racial laws that came into force in 1938.

In World War II

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 Allies. Italians had to choose whether to join Mussolini's newly formed Italian Social Republic, which was fascist, or stay loyal to the King and join the Allied 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 requested political asylum at the Spanish Embassy. He took advantage of his status as a veteran of the Spanish war, 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. and 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 as chargé d'affaires for the meantime.

According to Perlasca, he also prevented the execution of a plan to raze the Budapest Ghetto with around 60,000 people in it, as the Nazis had done in Warsaw. Back home, Perlasca drew up a detailed memorandum of the events, dated 13 October 1945, and sent it to the Spanish foreign minister in Madrid and to the Italian government, keeping a copy for himself. He also wrote to Sanz Briz, the ambassador whom he had replaced in Budapest, who laconically replied, warning Perlasca not to expect recognition for his work. Back home, Perlasca was also asked to pay with his own money for an expensive car (a Fiat 500 "Topolino"), which he had rented during the rescue of the Jews and had been destroyed in the Soviet siege of Budapest; Perlasca later struggled to make ends meet. The book was adapted as a made-for-TV film, Perlasca – Un eroe Italiano (2005), by the RAI national television corporation, not to be confused with the 1993 movie Perlasca. In 1989, Perlasca was awarded by the Hungarian parliament in its plenary session with the highest national honour.

In October 1991, Perlasca was awarded the title Grand Ufficiale of the Italian Republic; the Senate approved the grant of a life pension for notable Italian senior citizens in financial difficulty (via the ), but Perlasca declined the grant.

  • Perlasca was designated by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations in 1989
  • 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 10 December 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
  • Israeli stamp of 1998

Books

  • Silvia del Francia & Luca Cognolato, L'eroe invisible,
  • Giorgio Perlasca, L'impostore, 2007, Il Mulino. (Perlasca's memorial, published posthumously)
  • Enrico Deaglio, La banalità del bene. Storia di Giorgio Perlasca, 1991, Feltrinelli.

References

  • [http://www.giorgioperlasca.it/] (RAI Contains PDF versions of original documents; in English and Italian)
  • [https://www.giorgioperlasca.it/la-fondazione/lo-statuto/] Giorgio Perlasca Foundation
  • Perlasca. Un eroe italiano at the Internet Movie Database
  • "Giorgio Perlasca" song lyrics by Sandy Cash
  • Giorgio Perlasca, Hero of the Hungarian Holocaust
  • Giorgio Perlasca – his activity to save Jews' lives during the Holocaust, at Yad Vashem website