The Italian consulate commemorated the Italian National Holocaust Remembrance Day in Cambridge for the first time this past Sunday. The Cambridge event, co-sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, the Dante Alighieri Society and the Consulate of Israel to New England, celebrated the life of Giorgio Perlasca, an Italian gentile who helped save thousands of Jewish lives during the Holocaust.
Perlasca was an Italian citizen and a fascist ideologue, who posed as an Italian diplomat and smuggled Jews to safe havens abroad. “He risked his life to save life … It’s important to show that ideology must not prevail when something more important is at stake – a human life,” said Italian Consul General Liborio Stellino. “This is a day to remember together. The law asks all Italian institutions to contribute and commemorate this day. It seemed natural in Boston to organize a joint event.”
The event on Sunday featured talks by Stellino, AJC Executive Director Larry Lowenthal, Israeli Consul General Nadav Tamir, UMass Boston Professor Spencer DiScala (who is an expert on fascism) and a presentation by Carlo Cipollone, the Italian consulate’s general officer, of his Israeli stamp collection. The main event of the day was a screening and discussion of the film Perlasca: The Courage of a Just Man.