Giorgio perlasca short biography

Giorgio Perlasca (Como, 31/01/1910 – Padua, 15/08/1992) was an.
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Early life Perlasca was born in Como and grew up in Maserà, province of Padua, Italy.

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Giorgio immediately teamed up with Sanz Briz to save Jews from the Nazi death machine, which was systematically massacring the Jews of Hungary at shocking speed. He later said, “I couldn’t stand the sight of people being branded like animals… I couldn’t stand seeing children being killed. I did what I had to do.” Giorgio convinced diplomats from neutral countries to shelter Jews in their embassies and homes. He created “protection cards” that identified Jews as being under diplomatic guardianship and therefore impossible to arrest. In November 1944, Sanz Briz was transferred from Hungary to Switzerland, and he urged Giorgio to go with him. However, instead of traveling to a safe country, Giorgio put his own life at risk by staying in Hungary so he could continue saving Jews from the Nazis.

The Hungarian authorities got wind of what Giorgio was doing, and they used Sanz Briz’ departure from the country as an excuse to order the Spanish embassy building and residences to be emptied and shuttered. In response, Giorgio made a bold move. He announced that Sanz Briz would be ret

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Perlasca, Giorgio

In the final years of World War II, Italian businessman Giorgio Perlasca (1910–1992) risked his life by posing as a Spanish diplomat in order to save more than 5,000 Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust. Perlasca, a non-Jew, has been honored for his heroism, courage, and compassion by several nations, including Israel, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and the United States.

"He was a stranger in a strange country . . . He could have let the whole thing pass him by without taking risks, and like the rest of the world stood idly by. He chose not to do that," said Miles Lerman, United States Holocaust Council.

Fought for Italy and Fascism

Giorgio Perlasca was born on January 31st, 1910, in Como, northern Italy. Raised in a Catholic family, he and his five siblings were taught to believe that all men are "more or less" equal, noted a Washington Post article.

In the 1920s, Perlasca, like many other young Italians, was swept up in Mussolini's fascist movement. He volunteered to serve in the Italian army in the 1930s in two campaigns, noted Mordecai Paldiel in his book

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Giorgio Perlasca

Giorgio Perlasca worked for an Italian importing firm in Budapest, Hungary. When Mussolini fell in July 1943, all Italians in Hungary were requested to return home. Perlasca refused to go to a German-ruled Italian puppet state. As Perlasca said: "I was neither a fascist nor an anti-fascist, but I was anti-Nazi." Perlasca was interned; however, on October 13, 1944, he was able to talk his way out of the hotel where he was being held.

He made his way to Angel Sanz-Briz, the Spanish envoy in Budapest, and applied for a job. Sanz-Briz, along with other members of the diplomatic community, had been issuing protective passes to Budapest Jews since the spring of 1944. Sanz-Briz put Perlasca in charge of the "safe houses" sheltering Jews from deportation and from the Arrow Cross militia.

On November 30, 1944, Perlasca learned that Sanz-Briz had gone, leaving him a note saying that he could obtain a visa to Switzerland through the Spanish embassy in Vienna. Although Perlasca did not have an official letter appointing him the charge d'affaires of S