Records relating to the investigation of Giorgio Perlasca by the United States Holocaust Memorial Council

The collection consists of four folders of photocopied materials from the files of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Campaign Office. In general, the files concern Giorgio Perlasca and his work to assist and rescue Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. Among the copied materials are letters, newspaper and magazine articles, testimonies, and interviews concerning the investigation of Giorgio Perlasca conducted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Campaign Office. Giorgio Perlasca (1910-1992) was born on Jan. 31, 1910, in Italy, the son of an Italian government official in Padua. He fought for some time in the Spanish Civil War and later took a position in an Italian trade firm. He later worked in other cities in Eastern Europe after Italy entered World War II in 1940. He maintained an official position with the Italian Trade Commission, living in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (Serbia) for a year in 1941 and in 1942. Perlasca continued his work for the Italian government largely unimpeded until the fall of the Hungarian regent, Admiral Miklos Horthy, in 1944. Perlasca was interned by the Hungarian government from April to October 1944 after the Germans took control of Hungary. He escaped from internment on falsified papers provided by a member of the Swiss Diplomatic Corps. Using his status as a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, Perlasca adopted Spanish nationality and began work at the Spanish Legation shortly thereafter, where he posed as the Spanish Charge d'Affaires after the flight of the appointed Charge d'Affaires for Spain, in December 1944. During this time, he worked for the establishment of several safehouses in Budapest for sheltering Jews under Spanish protection. He also coordinated efforts with representatives of other neutral nations, including Raoul Wallenberg of Sweden, and the representatives of the Vatican, Portugal and Switzerland, to shelter and save Jews from deportation. Upon the liberation of by the Soviet Red Army in February 1945, Perlasca returned to Italy and raised his family. In 1987 he was honored for his wartime actions as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, and was simillary honored with the Medal of Remembrance by the United States Holocaust Memorial Council in 1990.