Giorgio Perlasca

Giorgio Perlasca (Como 31 January 1910 – Padua 15 August 1992) was an Italian businessman who, with the collaboration of official diplomats, posed as the Spanish consul-general to Hungary in the winter of 1944, and saved 5218 Jews from deportation to Nazi Germany death camps in eastern Europe.

Giorgio Perlasca was born in Como and grew up in Maserà, province of Padua. During the 1920s, he became a supporter of Fascism, fighting for Italy in East Africa during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, and in the Spanish Civil War (Corpo Truppe Volontari). As a result of his service in Spain, he received a gratitude safe conduct for Spanish embassies from Francisco Franco.

Perlasca grew disillusioned with Fascism, in particular due to Benito Mussolini's alliance with Nazism and adoption of the Italian Racial Laws, that came into force in 1938.

During the initial phase of World War II, he worked at procuring supplies for the Italian Army in the Balkans. He was later appointed as an official delegate of the Italian government with diplomatic status and sent to Eastern Europe with the mission of buying meat for the Italian army fighting on the Russian front. On 8 September 1943, Italy surrendered to the Allied forces. Italians had to choose whether to join Benito Mussolini's newly formed Italian Social Republic, which was fascist, or stay loyal to the King and join the Allies' side. Perlasca chose the latter.

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