Israel Honors Rescuer of Jews

In an international event, the “Italian Wallenberg” who posed as a Spanish diplomat in Hungary during World War II became an honorary Israeli citizen in a ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial at Jerusalem. Historians say Giorgio Perlasca, now 79, saved 6,000 Jews from the Nazi Holocaust. Perlasca was a livestock dealer for an Italian firm in Hungary when he took a staff job at the Spanish Embassy. As Budapest grew more turbulent, the ambassador fled, in late 1944, putting Perlasca in charge. Posing as charge d’affaires, Perlasca helped hide Jews in safe houses meant for people with relatives in Spain. He collected food for them and negotiated with Nazi collaborators in the Hungarian “Arrow Cross.” Nicknamed the “Italian Wallenberg,” Perlasca was in touch with Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who is credited with saving many Jews in Hungary and elsewhere in Eastern Europe before he disappeared in Soviet captivity.

--Facing a Thursday deadline, scientists in the Netherlands are peeling away thin layers of soil on the spot where they hope painter Rembrandt van Rijn was buried 300 years ago. The grave of the artist’s only son, Titus, became accessible when a wooden floor was removed during restoration work in Amsterdam’s 17th-Century Westerkerk church. Students of Rembrandt’s life know that Rembrandt was buried in the Westerkerk, and think he might have been interred next to Titus. Rembrandt survived his son by one year, dying in 1669 at the age of 63. Philip Korthals Altes, a stockbroker and the chairman of the church’s fund-raising committee, said tourists often ask to see Rembrandt’s grave. Now, only a marble plaque on the Westerkerk’s north wall commemorates Rembrandt. Willem van Stigt, the architect supervising the restoration project, said digging must be finished by Thursday, when the construction crews will close the grave and start laying a concrete floor.

--South Dakota Gov. George S. Mickelson encountered a skeptical constituent when he stopped recently at a Rapid City service station to get gas for his official car. After Mickelson handed the cashier his credit card she asked for his telephone number, which he gave her. Then she wanted to know his license plate number. The governor’s number is 1. “One what?” the cashier asked. “Just one,” the governor said he replied. After further reassurances, the cashier finally accepted the license number. She then asked Mickelson how he got such a low number. “Just lucky, I guess,” he said.