Posted on 12/04/2004 2:29:33 AM PST by kingsurfer
Italian doctor who fooled Nazis
Mr Sacerdoti invented "K Syndrome" to save lives when he was just 28 A retired Italian doctor has revealed for the first time how he invented a fictitious disease which fooled the Nazis during World War II.
The trick of prescribing Jews with a mysterious illness terrified the Nazis and saved 45 Roman Jews.
Dr Vittorio Sacerdoti has told his remarkable tale on the 60th anniversary of liberation of Rome.
He worked from a small and ancient hospital based on an island in the River Tiber.
From his flat in the Jewish ghetto where he still lives, he told the BBC's Guto Harri in Rome that he still remembers the day the Nazis turned up at the ghetto to take away his fellow Jews.
Just 28 years old at the time, he used courage and ingenuity to save 45 people from certain death.
The doctor still lives in the Jewish area of Rome, minutes from the hospital
As other Jews were being rounded up, Dr Sacerdoti admitted anyone who could reach the hospital as patients - and diagnosed them with a dangerous disease.
"We would write on their medical forms that the patient was suffering from K Syndrome," he said.
"We called it K after the German commander Kesserling - the Nazis thought it was cancer or tuberculosis, and they fled like rabbits."
K Syndrome saved his cousin, Luciana Sacerdoti, who was just 10 years old.
"The day the Nazis came to the hospital, someone came to our room and said: 'You have to cough, you have to cough a lot because they are afraid of the coughing, they don't want to catch an awful disease and they won't enter'."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Italy boasted a whole country of Schindlers according to Dorothy Rabinowitz of the WSJ. Pius XII hid hundreds of thousands in monasteries and convents--and melted-down sacred vessels to pay for the bribes necessary for a convoy of trucks to leave Rome daily to feed the refugees. Vatican City issued phony documents and baptismal certificates to save Jews. Nor did the Church in Italy act alone. Ordinary Italians hid Jews in their homes by the thousands. Rabinowitz reported the Italian military simply ignored orders from German high command to round up Jews for exportation to death camps. Countless Jewish lives were saved as a consequence.
Yeh. The Italians were less inclined to kill their own people than the Germans and East Europeans. Although when the Nazis put pressure on them they would make concessions.
It is important to remind ourselves that even in troubled times there are people willing to risk everything to save the lives of others.
For instance, on February 28, 1945, the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, Isaac Herzog, sent a letter of gratitude to the Apostolic Nuncio in Romania (a Msgr. Andrea Cassulo) stating that:
"The people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion which form the very foundations of civilization, are doing for us unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living prove of divine Providence in this world."
Also, Israeli senior diplomat and scholar Pinchas Lapide, with access to the Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance authority) archives has proved that
"The Catholic Church relief and rescue program under the pontificate of Pius XII was instrumental in saving the lives of as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi’s hands. That was more than all other Churches, religious institutions and international rescue organizations put together."
The Israelis apparently recognized the lives saved by Pius by planting a forest, in commemoration, of as many trees in the Negeb, SE of Jerusalem. 860,000 trees, one per person saved. And at at Pius's funeral one of the dignitaries (might have been Meir) said (something like) "if we ever forget your kindness to us, may the sun go cold"
Basically, this whole "Hitler's Pope" crap is just another left-wing smear.
People like this doctor, Oscar Schindler, the heros of flight 93 point out clearly that even the "Joe Everyman" can make a difference in the big picture.
The mini-war between German and Italian forces in 1943 is one of the great untold stories of WW II.
The smear was the result of disinformation put out by the Kremlin in the 1950s. It led to the play, The Deputy, which charged that Pius XII had remained silent in the face of the Holocaust. But not only had Pius spoken-out in the early days of the war, but he did so forcefully, as was reported in the British and American press--including the New York Times.It was only when the Nazis retaliated by intensifying their roundups, that he changed his tactics. And after he issued the order to convents and monasteries across Italy to hide almost a million Jewish refugees (they were hiding in Vatican buildings as well), it would have been the height of imprudence to "speak-out". The last thing he wanted to do at that point was draw attention to himself and what he was doing.
It is interesting to contrast the treatment of Jews in Italy, a supposed ally of Germany, to their treatment in France, a supposed neutral after the fall of Paris in 1940. Whereas the French cooperated enthusiastically, the Italians did what they could to subvert an evil system. Another common Italian tactic was simply misplacing records of who were Jews and where they lived.
Thanks for this inspirational story.
This information is interesting. I would like to share it with students. Do you know of a link to this letter and an article about the time?
Tank you and all the friends here for understanding our people so well. Of all the wrong reasons to join Germany in that damned war racism was the worst. Racism is so far from our Roman and Catholic culture that even prominent fascists helped save jews. Others eventually left the party. Anyway, the fall of the consensus for the regime started right after the alliance with nazi Germany and mostly after the introduction of the laws discriminating jews.
"It is interesting to contrast the treatment of Jews in Italy, a supposed ally of Germany, to their treatment in France, a supposed neutral after the fall of Paris in 1940."
Good point, I never thought about that angle before.
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