Giorgio Perlasca; Rescued Hungarian Jews From Nazis

Giorgio Perlasca, 82, who saved more than 5,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazis during World War II. Posing as a diplomat from neutral Spain, Perlasca was able to give fake Spanish citizenship papers to Jews in Budapest, Hungary, to save them from Nazi deportation. Perlasca, a livestock trader, had been in Budapest on business when the Nazis invaded in March, 1944. He was able to take refuge in the Spanish Embassy, having fought as a volunteer for the Nationalist side during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. After the war, Perlasca returned to Italy and his bravery remained secret until 1987, when a person he saved put an advertisement in a Hungarian newspaper trying to find him and thank him. He became known as the “Italian Wallenberg”--a reference to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who was sent to Hungary during the war to help Jews escape. Israel recognized Perlasca for his efforts in 1989, granting the Roman Catholic honorary citizenship and planting a tree in his honor. On Aug. 15 of a heart attack in Padua, Italy.