NEW YORK, JAN. 30, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation is launching an appeal for information regarding Italian citizens who saved persecuted people during World War II.
The New York-based foundation, with the mission to honor, preserve and divulge the legacies of the rescuers of the Holocaust, noted that there are many cases of Italians who risked their lives to save others from the persecution of the Nazis.
One Italian rescuer is Giovanni Palatucci, an Italian policeman who gave his life to save some 5,000 Jews during World War II. His case is currently being considered for canonization.
Others include Giorgio Perlasca, who appointed himself as Spanish ambassador to Budapest and put under his custody thousands of refugees condemned to death in the extermination camps, and Beniamino Schivo, a Catholic Priest, who provided shelter, clothing, and food for an entire family.
The foundation noted that Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, later Pope John XXIII, helped save thousands of persecuted Jewish and non-Jewish people during his tenure as apostolic delegate in Istanbul in 1944.
The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation paid a series of worldwide tributes to John XXIII, including proposing to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, to declare him “Righteous Among the Nations.”
Anyone with testimonies, or information regarding relatives of the rescuers, is asked to contact the foundation:
New York (ask for Svetlana)
34 E 67 Street
New York, NY 10065
USA
Phone: +1 212 7373275
Jerusalem (ask for Danny)
3 Antebi Street
Jerusalem, Israel
Phone +972 2 6257996
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On the Net:
www.raoulwallenberg.net
