Legacy
- In 1955, Father Niccacci was awarded with a gold medal by the Union of the Jewish Communities in Italy in appreciation of his deeds on behalf of Jews during the war.
Father Rufino Niccacci
and the Assisi Underground
Yad Vashem
Recognized as Righteous Among the Nations
- Father Rufino Niccacci - 1974
- Monsignor Giuseppe Placido Nicolini - 1977
- Father Aldo Brunacci -1977
- Luigi and Trento Brizi- 1997
- Gino Bartali - 2013
“A slip of the tongue by a single informant could have condemned the entire village to the camps, yet they did not yield."
Father Rufino Niccacci
- Born in 1911 in Deruta
- Father Guardian of the Franciscan Monastery of San Damiano in Assisi
- Organized the network to provide Jews with false documentation
- Disguised the Jews and hid them in monasteries and convents
Motivation
- Monsignor Nicolini and his secretary, Father Aldo Brunacci, established the Committee of Assistance and authorized the use of monasteries and convents for hiding the Jewish refugees.
"Why did we do it? We did it because we had to."
Monsignor Giuseppe Nicolini
"In all about 300 Jews had been entrusted to us by Divine Providence with God's help and through the intercession of St. Francis. Not one of them fell into the hands of their persecutors…. Jews and Christians venerate the same book, the Bible, whose opening chapter reminds us that we were created in God's image and likeness. God is our father and we are all brothers and sisters."
The Assisi Underground
- Luigi Brizi and his son Trento, the owners of a small printing press in town, worked at night and printed hundreds of blank identity cards and falsified documents.
- Father Niccacci disguised the Jews as monks and nuns and found places for them in every monastery and church in town including the Monastery of San Quirico and the Convent of the Stigmata.
Assisi
It takes a village...
- Niccacci, Brunacci, and Nicolini: organized network, hid Jews in monasteries/convents, provided for Jewish religious needs and arranged classes for children
- Luigi and Trento Brizi: forged falsified identity papers
- Marcella Paladin: supplied blank identity cards
- Arnaldo Fortini: hid Jewish refugees in his home
- Gino Bartali: hid Jewish refugees in his cellar and transported documents in frame of bicycle
- Geremia del Bianco: used taxi to transport refugees
- Pio Caianella: led two American pilots to St. Francis without detection
- Italian refugees: gave identity cards as models, provided information about hometowns
- Franciscan friars: looked up family names/addresses at the post office
- 6,800 Italian Jews died in Nazi concentration camps
- Thousands of others were saved by their fellow Italians with 80% of the Jews in Italy surviving
- Assisi had no previously existing Jewish population yet sought to help the 5,000 refugees that came, among them 300 Jews