Giovanni Palatucci

Giovanni Palatucci (31 May 1909 – 10 February 1945) was an Italian police official who was long believed to have saved thousands of Jews in Fiume between 1939 and 1944 (current Rijeka in Croatia) from being deported to Nazi extermination camps. In 2013 a research panel of historians led by the Centro Primo Levi reviewed almost 700 documents and concluded that Palatucci had followed RSI and German orders concerning the Jews and enabling the deportation of the majority of the 570 Jews living in Fiume and surrounding areas, 412 of whom were deported to Auschwitz, a higher percentage than in any Italian city. The matter is currently the topic of scholarly debate. A national commission of historians recommended by the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities, the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation in Milan, the Italian Ministry of the Interior and the Centro Primo Levi NY is conducting a comprehensive review of the documents.

Palatucci was born in Montella, Avellino, Italy. He graduated from the University of Turin, Faculty of Law in 1932. In 1936 he entered police service in Genoa and the following year he was assigned to Fiume. For 5 decades, Palatucci was believed to have been Fiume Chief of Police, and that he used his power to help the Jews. Even though already in 1994, historian Marco Coslovich published the documents showing that Palatucci never had more than a subordinate administrative role, in which he excelled and for which he was praised by his superiors, the misrepresentation of his position continued until the 2013, when the Holocaust Museum stated in its anniversary exhibition that Palatucci "used his power of Chief of Police to help the Jews".

Palatucci, known as “the Italian Schindler,” has long been credited with saving thousands of Jews during the Holocaust while serving in the police department in the city of Fiume, and was designated by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

After the promulgation of racial laws against Jews in 1938 and at the beginning of World War II in 1940, Palatucci was chief of the Foreigners' Office. According to his hagiographers, he began falsifying documents and visas.

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