Montreal celebrates Giorgio Perlasca

An 'accidental hero' who defended life and humanity

The Italian and Jewish communities of Montréal pay tribute to Giorgio Perlasca on August 25, screening the movie Perlasca, un eroe italiano. The story of Giorgio Perlasca is the extraordinary tale of a man who, in the winter of 1944 in Budapest, managed to save - almost single-handedly - thousands of Jews from Nazi death camps by passing himself off for the Spanish Consul.
Surfacing after close to 50 years, the story of this "accidental hero", whose name is now listed in Jerusalem with those of the Righteous among the Nations, shows that it is always possible, for any individual, to take personal responsibility for defending life and humanity.
Perlasca fought for the Franchists in the Spanish Civil War. He was later hired in a diplomatic post at the Spanish Embassy to Budapest, Hungary, during World War II. Perlasca opposed the racist laws promulgated against the Jews. He began distributing fake Spanish passports to Hungarian Jews, allowing over 5,000 of them to avoid deportation to the lagers.
"I remember being at the railway station waiting for deportation," recalled Veronica Winkler, now living in Montréal, "when we were given Spanish passports. Mister Perlasca gave us food and clothes, and saved our lives, risking his own."
"When an individual saves a life," adds Samuel Minzberg, President of the JGH Foundation, "the whole world is saved."
The movie - co-produced by RAI Fiction, France 2 and Focus Films, made by Carlo degli Esposti and directed by Alberto Negrin - presented Giorgio Perlasca to the general public through a good script and solid acting.
The film's success entailed its distribution to many other countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, Israel, and of course Canada.
It will soon be distributed in Spain, Hungary and the United States. Israeli state TV broadcast the movie on the occasion of the day of remembrance of the Shoah, April 29, of two years ago.

Publication Date: 2005-08-28
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=5511