Giorgio Perlasca was an Italian businessman and former Fascist who, with the collaboration of official diplomats, posed as the Spanish consul-general to Hungary in the winter of 1944, and saved 5,218 Jews from deportation to Nazi extermination camps in eastern Europe. In 1989, Perlasca was designated by Israel as a Righteous Among the Nations.
Giorgio Perlasca
Perlasca bust in Budapest
Stele dedicated to Giorgio Perlasca at Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem.
Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations is an honourific used by the State of Israel to describe all of the non-Jews who, for purely altruistic reasons, risked their lives in order to save Jews from being exterminated by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. The term originates from the concept of ger toshav, a legal term used to refer to non-Jewish observers of the Seven Laws of Noah.
Memorial tree in Jerusalem, Israel honoring Irena Sendler, a Polish Roman Catholic nurse who saved 2,500 Jews
Obverse (left) and reverse (right) of the Righteous Medal
The Righteous Diploma of Maria Kotarba
A Righteous Among the Nations award ceremony in the Polish Senate, 2012