Perlasca and Marrone, timeless heroes, an example to everyone

“He who saves a life, saves a whole world,” reads the plaque dedicated to Giorgio Perlasca, in the park in Viale Aguggiari, in Varese, quoting one of the most beautiful passages in the Talmud, one of Judaism’s sacred texts. It is a lovely phrase that, in a few words, sums up the life of Perlasca and of Calogero Marrone, who were remembered this morning by the Italian association of partisans, ANPI, by the Italy-Israel Association, and by Varese town council, at the end of the celebrations dedicated to the “Day of Memory”.

Giorgio Perlasca was born in Como, and he became famous when it was discovered that he had saved the lives of over five thousand Hungarian Jews during the Second World War, snatching them from Nazi deportation by pretending to be a Spanish diplomat. Sicilian-born Calogero Marrone, who was is charge of the registry office at the Varese town hall, helped hundreds of Jews in the town by giving them false documents that enabled them to flee. Marrone was betrayed, was first arrested and was then deported to Dachau, where he died in 1945.

Angelo Zappoli, the vice chairman of ANPI, Rossano Belloni, the chairman of the Italy-Israel Association, the Mayor of Varese, Attilio Fontana, the councillor for town planning, Fabio Binelli, the chairman of electoral district No. 3, Massimo Realini, and the chairman of electoral district No. 1, Giuseppe Montalbetti remembered how necessary it is to keep the example of these two men alive, men who were able to react to the Nazi regime, saving a great number of Jews from certain death. There was also unanimous condemnation of the act of vandalism in which, shortly before Christmas, the monument dedicated to Perlasca was smeared with paint.