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Giorgio PerlascaGiorgio Perlasca (January 31, 1910–August 15, 1992) was an Italian who posed as the Spanish consul to Hungary in the winter of 1944, and saved thousands of Jews from the Nazis. Perlasca was born in Como and grew up in Maser, province of Padua. During the 1920s he became a supporter of Fascism, and fought in East Africa and in the Spanish Civil War (Corpo Truppe Volontari), where he received a gratitude safe conduct for Spanish embassies from Francisco Franco. He grew disillusioned with Fascism, in particular due to the alliance with Germany and the anti-Jewish laws that had come into force in 1938. During the Second World War he worked at procuring supplies for the Italian army in the Balkans. When the Nazis occupied Hungary, in 1944, instead of departing with other diplomatic staff (Italy had by now surrendered to the Allies) he escaped to the Spanish Embassy in Budapest, becoming immediately a Spanish citizen, Jorge Perlasca, due to his status as a veteran of the Spanish war. He worked with the Spanish Ambassador, Angel Sanz Briz, and other diplomats of neutral states in smuggling Jews out of the country. When Sanz Briz was removed from Hungary to Switzerland in November of 1944, the Hungarian government ordered the Spanish Embassy building and the extra-territorial houses where the Jews took refuge cleared out. Perlasca immediately announced that Sanz Briz has only temporarily left and left him as his substitute consul. He worked during the winter to hide, protect and feed thousands of Jews in Budapest and to issue them with safe conduct passes on the basis of a Spanish law that grants citizenship to Jews of Sephardi origin. He later received decorations from the Italian, Hungarian and Spanish governments and is considered by Israel as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. He died on the 15th of August 1992. His deeds were the subject of an Italian film, Perlasca, un eroe italiano. External links Perlasca, Giorgio Perlasca, Giorgio Perlasca, Giorgio Perlasca, Giorgio
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