The strange and courageous life of Giorgio Perlasca

If I told you a story about a serial liar, a man who manipulated the law, forged documents, and assumed and discarded identities like they were cheap hats, what kind of man would you think I was talking about? A con artist? A criminal?

How about a hero?

This was the life of Giorgio Perlasca. A complicated story that shows that no matter who you are, there is always the possibility of heroism and redemption. His is the incredible story of how a former soldier in Franco's fascist army went on to become one of the most celebrated Righteous Among the Nations.

Giorgio Perlasca never intended to be a hero. He was a businessman, a citizen of Italy, a normal, average man of his age. He had courage, but regrettably, that courage led him to the causes of his nation at the time – Franco's Italy. 

Perlasca was a card carrying member of the fascist movement in Italy, fighting in the Spanish Civil War to help usher in Franco's regime. In the fighting during WWII, he found himself again on the side of fascists as a delegate of the Italian government, dispatched to Eastern Europe to source supplies and food for Mussolini's troops. 

But all of that changed when the Italy surrendered to the allied forces in the autumn of 1943. With Italy fractured between areas still occupied by the Germans and areas liberated by the allied forces, soldiers dispatched to foreign lands found themselves suddenly cut off from their homeland. Perlasca himself was stuck in Budapest with little hope of support or safe transit home. 

As an Italian citizen in the midst of German soldiers angry at the betrayal of a key ally, this was a precarious position. Italians were being rounded up and placed into camps, their fates unclear and dubious. Not exactly thrilled at the idea of trusting his life to German hands, Perlasca got clever. He obtained a medical pass under false pretenses, not because he needed treatment, but because he needed freedom of movement. A medical pass would allow him to travel freely in Hungary. As soon as he was able, he booted it to the nearest Spanish Embassy. Perlasca was a veteran of the Spanish war and Spain had a policy of granting political asylum to former vets – a much more attractive offer than whatever camp the German's might put him in.

This is where Giorgio's story could have ended. An average man on the wrong side of history who managed to find a way to save his own skin in the midst of the bloodiest war the world had ever seen. Thankfully, for both himself and the thousands of Jews he would save, this was only the beginning. 

Despite his background fighting on the behalf of fascists, and the tempting comfort of his own relative safety, Perlasca saw the oppression of the Jews in Hungary as nothing short of pure evil. Day after day, he heard stories of how the local Jewish population were systematically beaten, starved, and dragged off in the night. And he resolved to do something about it. Even if that meant placing himself back into the danger he just avoided.

Perlasca was a man of quick wits with a talent for improvisation and the nerves of a poker shark. Despite his history as a soldier, he didn't fight the Nazis with bullets, bombs, or knives. No, he fought them with an absurd amount of confidence. 

Ingratiating himself into serving as a member of the Spanish embassy, Perlasca exploited loop holes and diplomatic privileges to save as many Jews as he could. He wrote thousands of bogus letters of Spanish citizenship. Backdated and forged, these papers stated that a family had requested permission to move to Spain and would be held under the protection of the Spanish government until such time as they could make the trip, granting them diplomatic asylum in Spanish owned safe houses. He issued these to Jewish families like he was passing out coupon fliers. 

As the war turned and the Soviet's began to advance towards Budapest, many embassy official abandoned their posts and fled for fear of being caught in the fighting or a possible Soviet capture. The Spanish ambassador was one of those who fled, which left both Perlasca, and the thousands of Jewish "Spanish” families depending on diplomatic protection in a risky position. Indeed, upon learning that the ambassador was gone, the Nazi-affiliated Hungarian Arrow Cross descended on those Jewish safe houses almost overnight. So Perlasca did what he did best – he thought fast.

Incredibly, Perlasca confronted the troops raiding a safe house directly and told them they were making a huge mistake. That the ambassador was not gone, but had simply gone to Bern to facilitate communications with Madrid and there would be hell to pay for violating their national agreements. Not satisfied with such a small bluff, Perlasca went one step further, insisting that the ambassador had left written orders placing him as the ambassador's direct replacement during his absence. This is how the former soldier turned asylum seeker became an ambassador of Spain in the span of one ridiculous conversation. Quite the promotion.

As "ambassador” Perlasca carried out thousands of more rescues. Most were done with the pen, the issuing of passports, citizenships, and phony Spanish diplomatic rights. Others were more dramatic. Perlasca made a habit of visiting the deportation stations where arrested Jews were routinely sorted and place in freight cars, transportation for the so-called "final solution” that awaited them. He would pull up to these stations in his official diplomatic vehicle marked with Spanish flags and, bold as brass, Perlasca would pull men, women, and children out of line and either issue them Spanish papers on the spot, or bluster and claim they were protected Spanish citizens. He'd hurry them into his car to the befuddlement and surprise of German guards and speed them away from certain doom.

Perhaps Perlasca's most audacious act of heroism was his prevention of a planned bombing/burning of a Jewish ghetto containing more than 60,000 people in it. While still in the guise of a high ranking Spanish diplomat, Perlasca became aware of a plan to "speed up” the extermination of the local Jewish population by setting a series of incendiary devices in the Jewish ghetto.  Appalled at the barbarism of such an act, Perlasca demanded an immediate audience with the Hungarian interior minister Gábor Vajna. Addressing him with all the nerve of offended royalty, Perlasca upbraided the minister, promising a series of economic and political retaliations if he allowed the plot to be carried out. He threatened the minister with any number of (fictional) legal consequences, and to top it off, he guaranteed economic measures against the "3000” Hungarian citizens living in Spain. The planned atrocity was never committed. 

Later, in his diary, Perlasca mused "All of this was a colossal bluff. I believe there are no more than 300 Hungarians in Spain.”

When the war ended, Perlasca returned home to Italy. You might expect he would boast about his accomplishments, how he played the Nazis and Arrow Cross for fools, how he saved the lives of thousands. True to form though, Perlasca played his cards close to his chest. He never spoke about the full extent of what he did, not even to his own family.

It wasn't until the late '80s that history caught up with him. A group of Jews he saved and their decedents tracked him down and confirmed his story. All told, Perlasca directly saved over five thousand Jews through his actions (without counting the untold number that would have died in the bombing plot he foiled) making him one of the greatest heroes of the Holocaust. Naturally, he was named one of the Righteous Among the Nations and granted a special exhibit in Yad Vashem. He was the subject of movies and biographies in Israel, the Raanana Symphonette Orchestra would even commission an original orchestral piece entitled "His Finest Hour” honouring his actions.

Despite the attention, Perlasca insisted all he did as "tell a lot of lies.” He shied from the adulation. "I couldn't stand seeing children being killed. That's what I think it was. I don't think I was a hero."

In 1992, Perlasca died at the age of 82 leaving a legacy of heroism, humility, and redemption that should serve as an inspiration to us all.