In 1943, a team of ingenious Italian doctors invented a deadly, contagious virus called Syndrome K to protect Jews from annihilation. On October 16 of that year, as Nazis closed in to liquidate Rome’s Jewish ghetto, many runaways hid in the 450-year-old Fatebenefratelli Hospital. There, anti-Fascist doctors including Adriano Ossicini, Vittorio Sacerdoti and Giovanni Borromeo created a gruesome, imaginary disease.
The doctors instructed “patients” to cough very loudly and told Nazis that the disease was extremely dangerous, disfiguring and molto contagioso. Soldiers were so alarmed by the list of symptoms and incessant coughing that they left without inspecting the patients. It’s estimated that a few dozen lives were saved by this brilliant scheme.
The doctors were later honored for their heroic actions, and Fatebenefratelli Hospital was declared a “House of Life” by the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.
I am so absolutely pissed off that i never learned this in school
Another little-known story: Carlo Angela, another anti-fascist doctor, hid fellow anti-fascists and Jewish people in his mental health clinic, forging medical cards, changing names and nationalities.
A guy called Giorgio Perlasca changed his name to ‘Jorge’ and pretended to be the Spanish consul-general in Budapest. Using extraterritorial conventions, he proceeded to literally bullshit his wayinto saving more than 5,000 lives. Also, this happened:
In December 1944, Perlasca rescued two boys from being herded onto a freight train in defiance of a German lieutenant colonel on the scene. The Swedish diplomat-rescuer Raoul Wallenberg, also present there, later told Perlasca that the officer who had challenged him was Adolf Eichmann.
And there were so many small gestures that were never widely known – someone ‘losing’ a list of names, or ‘misplacing’ it, or having it ‘stolen by unknowns’. “Oh, we can’t get those Jews for you, they fled and we think they are now refugees in, uhhh… Monaco. Yes. All of them. What do you mean, too many to hide there? You’re not doubting my word, are you?? Rude.”
There were the people who hid them in their houses, and there was that Black Shirt who showed up at my grandmother’s apartment block and, pretending not to have noticed the dozen or so heads peering from the windows, he LOUDLY informed the concierge that THEY WOULD BE THERE THE NEXT MORNING TO CHECK IF THERE WAS ANYONE THERE WHO SHOULDN’T BE, THIS IS STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL BY THE WAY, I REPEAT, TOMORROW MORNING, STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL DON’T TELL ANYONE. (That night, the nearby church had more rough sleepers than usual. It’s hard when you lose your house to a bombing, isn’t it?)
Armed Resistance is often celebrated and for good reason, but these are good reminders that you don’t need to hold a gun and shoot to make a difference. Resistance can be losing a list of names, forging paperwork, claim you have “no knowledge whatsoever of the people you’re looking for would this face lie to you”, pretending you’re the official of a foreign country (admittedly, not as easy), let information slip by and reach the right people. It’s in the small things and everyone can do their part.
In short:
… And if you don’t see helpers, it’s time to be one.
Cheloneuniverse 