`ITALIAN SCHINDLER` GETS STAMP | Italy
Did anybody ever hear of him ?

Rome, May 13 - An Italian policeman who saved
thousands of Jews in the Second World War before dying in a
Nazi concentration camp is to be commemorated by the Italian
Post Office in the centenary of his birth.
A picture of Giovanni Palatucci, dubbed `the Italian
Schindler`, will appear on a 60-cent stamp to be issued on
May 29, the Post Office said Wednesday.
Palatucci, who came from a small town near Avellino, was
police chief in the Dalmatian city of Fiume (now Rijeka in
Croatia) during World War II and saved more than 5,000 Jews
from deportation and death.
But unlike Oskar Schindler, Palatucci was arrested by
the Gestapo in late 1944 and died in Dachau in January 1945
at the age of 36.
The Vatican started procedures to beatify him in 2002 -
the first stage towards sainthood.
Vatican officials hinted at a personal interest on the
part of Pope John Paul II.
Palatucci`s heroic efforts to save Jews remained unknown
for many years and were only slowly pieced together by
historians. He came to the attention of the public thanks to
a series of posthumous honours he was awarded during the
1990s.
Palatucci, who was in charge of the immigration office
at Fiume, used several ploys to save the Dalmatian Jews from
the death camps.
First he employed semi-legal ways of diverting them
towards safe internment camps in Italy or other countries,
helped by his uncle, a bishop posted at the southern city of
Salerno.
But then he began to take ever bigger risks to get Jews
past the Nazis, forging documents and even compromising his
own safety.
He had a fairly good idea that the Nazis were closing in
on him, the book says, and in 1944 went to Switzerland for a
holiday with his fiancee`. But he opted to return to Fiume to
continue his work in the knowledge that he would almost
certainly be arrested.
Palatucci, who started off as a Fascist policeman in
Genoa, was a devout Catholic whose rebellion against the
Fascist regime was apparently sparked by two love affairs,
one with a high-ranking Fascist woman official and one with a
rich Jewish girl.
In 1990 Palatucci joined the other `Just Among the
Nations` at Yad Vashem, the Jewish Holocaust Memorial. In
1995 the Italian state honoured him with a gold
medal for civilian valour.
Italy`s state broadcaster RAI celebrated Palatucci`s
deeds with a two-part TV biography shown in September 2001.
Palatucci was one of two Italian Schindler-type heroes.
The other was Giorgio Perlasca, who posed as a Spanish
diplomat in Budapest after the real consul fled the city near
the end of the war.
He used his bogus position to save thousands of Jews
from Nazi German death camps.
Perlasca, too, was the subject of a TV biopic that drew
record audiences in 2002.

Molto interessante Paolo.

Concentration camps in Italy during the Second World War? I hadn’t read that in my High School History books or heard about it
from my Catholic parochial school friends either. What were these Jewish concentration camps like in Italy? How many Jews were
cruelly forced into incinerators, inhumanely experimented upon, and maliciously treated like animals in Italy?
How much like Auschwitz were the camps in Italy?

Many Italian Catholics protected and hid Jews who had escaped the German atrocities. Sure, they were placed in
‘concentration camps’, but they were treated like fellow human beings – Italian style – with schools for the kids,
marriages, parties, and the gift of dignity. In fact, many lasting friendships developed between Catholic Italians
and Jewish refugees. Though Italy and Germany were allies, the Italian people proved that political covenants were
never going to change their unique Italian character and culture.This has been my point all along. Italians are mixed.
Italians are part Phoenician, Jew, Arab, Greek, Persian, Moor, Etruscan, Hispanic, Roman, Germanic etc. etc.
The Roman Empire was the biggest multicultural society in history. Italians ultimately accept anybody and everybody.

Hi Villa, read more carefully: the article talks about " diverting them
towards safe internment camps in Italy or other countries " -
My idea reading is that this camp in Italy where relatively safe ( I never heard of concentration camps in Italy ) - they might not have been Club Mediteranee but they where quite different from the Nazi concentration camps

Paolo, What I said goes along 100% with what you're saying.

"they were treated like fellow human beings – Italian style – with schools for the kids,marriages, parties, and
the gift of dignity. In fact, many lasting friendships developed between Catholic Italians and Jewish refugees."

OK - Villa - I got confused between the first and the second part of your post.
I was trying to do some wiki research
Campo di concentramento - Wikipedia

Apparently wiki explains that there where "campi di concentramento" ( Concentration camp ) in Italy but also explains that the Nazi camp where a sub-set of the concentration camp and should have been called extermination camp ( campi di sterminio ) - ...anyway I think I am going too much off subject. I am glad that Italy too has its own "Italian Shlindler" in Giovanni Palatucci

I found this:

"Initially, Mussolini laughed at the racial policies of Nazi Germany and saw them as ridiculous. He thought that they
would get in the way of the long term objectives of Fascist states and it is worth noting that there were many prominent
Italian fascists who were jewish. However, as the war progressed,and as the embarrassing defeats mounted up for the Italian
army, Mussolini fell into line with the thinking of the nazis. Initially, the Jewish fascist party members were allowed to
keep their posts and weren't persecuted by the Nazis. Soon, however, they were subject to the same persecutions as every
other Italian Jew. The Italian authorities and Mussolini effectively turned a blind eye as the Nazis rounded up Jews
throughout italy and sent them to the death camps in the East"
Italian Fascism 12/15 - YouTube - Truveo Video Search This is the often overlooked story of Italian Fascism from its violent rise ... Mussolini, who would become the inspiration for the German fascist movement. ...
www.truveo.com/Italian-Fascism-1215/id/649784063 - 85k - Cached - Similar pages

Fantastic history lesson, Paulo. My uncle Johnny was in one of those concentration camps and told stories about them to my dad. I was too young to understand. Since I am a stamp collector I will be in contact with family in Italy to make arrangements toward the purchase of these stamps. It will be something nice and historic to pass on to my grandchildren.

Ciao,
Paula