The town of Ramath Gan this week-end honored the memory of an Italian police official of the; city of Fiume who was executed by the Nazis for saving the lives of hundreds of Jews who passed through Fiume in transports headed for death camps.
Jews who survived because of the actions of Giovanni Palatuci, deputy police chief of Fiume, two of his relatives and various officials including the Mayor of Ramath Gan, participated in ceremonies naming a street in this town for Palatuci. The two relatives were Father Alphonso Palatuci and Archbishop Campaign Goeppe Palatuci, cousins of the martyr.
Survivors told how the police official, learning that a transport of 800 Hungarian Jews was on a siding in Fiume waiting for clearance to continue to German camps, organized the Jews of the Fiume region who broke open the railway cars and rescued the Hungarian Jews. He later arranged for the rescued Jews to go to the region of Campania where his cousins hid them. The eulogy to Palatuci was made by a Rabbi Hershkovitz, formerly of Hungary, whose life was saved by the Italian.
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