"We are honouring a man whose heroism saved the lives of 5,000 Jews," said Syd Wise, an EMSB commissioner and former principal of Wagar, who spearheaded the project with EMSB Chairman Dominic Spiridigliozzi. "As well, this will help people to remember the six million Jews who were exterminated during the Holocaust, and the millions more who were murdered in the 20th century."

Giovanni Palatucci saved the lives of 5,000 Jews destined to die in death camps during World War II. From 1938 to 1944, Palatucci was first in charge of the Office of Foreigners and later Chief of Police of Fiume, a city in northern Italy. Following the promulgation of racist laws in Italy, he forged documents and visas for thousands of Jews, sending them to internment camps where their protection was ensured with the assistance of his uncle, the Bishop of Campagna, and other members of his family. After the 1943 capitulation of Italy, Fiume was occupied by the Nazis. Palatucci remained as head of the police, though without real powers. He continued to help Jews and maintain contact with the Resistance until his activities were discovered by the Gestapo. Palatucci refused a safe pass to Switzerland offered by a close friend, the Swiss Consul to Trieste, sending his Jewish fiancée instead. On September 13, 1944, Palatucci was arrested and condemned to death. The sentence was later commuted, and Palatucci was deported to the concentration camp of Dachau, where he died in February 1945 at the age of 36. [Read more...]


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