Coming together under the auspices of the Wallenberg Year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the Embassy of Italy in Hungary, the Italian Cultural Institute in Budapest and the Hungarian Jewish Cultural Association commemorated Giorgo Perlasca and Angelo Rotta on November 29, 2012.
Gergely Prőhle, Deputy State Secretary of the MFA and Maria Assunta Accili, the Ambassador of Italy, also addressed the gathering. Szabolcs Szita, Director of the Holocaust Memorial Centre presented the activities of the two rescuers from Italy and from the Vatican. Italian and Hungarian artists performed at the memorial evening.
Giorgo Perlasca and Angelo Rotta rescued many people while showed great courage and spiritual greatness during the period of the Holocaust in Hungary. Italian-born Perlasca, who was living in Hungary at the time, passed himself off as a Spanish chargé and in fact managed to have the Arrow Cross regime recognize his status. In this capacity, he managed to save thousands of persecuted Jews by issuing false documents for them. Angelo Rotta, the apostolic nuncio in Budapest, issued several thousands of passes and extended Papal protection to the homes of Jewish inhabitants to save the lives of those persecuted in Hungary. Memorial plaques in Budapest preserve their memory.
The purpose of the commemoration under the auspices of the Wallenberg Year was to pay homage to heroes who managed to remain human in the face of inhumanity, who did not remain idle during the period of the Holocaust and who at great risk to their own safety saved the lives of tens of thousands of our persecuted Jewish compatriots.
(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
