Carlo Angela

Carlo Angela (9 January 1875 – 3 June 1949) was an Italian doctor, who has been recognized as a "Righteous Gentile" for his efforts during World War II in saving Jewish lives. He is the father of TV journalist and science writer Piero Angela.

Angela was born in Olcenengo, Province of Vercelli.

He graduated with a degree in medicine in 1899 at the University of Turin. In Paris he attended the Neuropsychiatry courses held by Babinski. During World War I he was an officer of the Italian Red Cross at the "Vittorio Emanuele III" Territorial Hospital of Turin.

He joined politics after World War I, by joining the Democrazia Sociale movement, a political movement born from the ashes of the Partito Radicale Storico. Within the party there were lots of contradictions: together with left-wing deputies there were others who became ministers in the first government run by Mussolini, formed after the march on Rome. Then Angela left the party and allied with the reformist Socialists led by Ivanoe Bonomi, whom he ran with at the elections of 6 April 1924, without being elected.

After the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, in June 1924, Carlo Angela openly blamed the fascists from the pages of the weekly paper Tempi Nuovi.

The government's reaction to this article was to set the newspaper's office on fire and Angela fled to San Maurizio Canavese. There, he became health director of the clinic for mental diseases "Villa Turina Amione". It was there that Angela offered a safe haven to numerous antifascists and Jews during the German Occupation and the Repubblica Sociale Italiana, by forging the medical cards to justify their stay inside the clinics. He diagnosed patients incorrectly and changed names or nationalities. In his rescue he was helped by Vice-Director dr. Brun, by sister Tecla and by the nurses Fiore De Stefanis, Carlo and Sante Simionato. As suspected by the fascist police, Mr. Angela was summoned and interrogated in Turin and he also ran the risk of being shot during a retaliation.

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