by Dr. Israel Jamitovsky
As the dear readers will remember, a few days ago in this same column, I invoked the valuable undertaking promoted by the B'nai Brith and the Israel Agrarian Fund, for which the medal of merit for the salvation of Jews to all those Jews who, risking their lives, saved those of their brothers during the Holocaust. The ceremony was recently held at the Martyrs Forest in the vicinity of Jerusalem.
Among those awarded was the Italian Jewish doctor Dr. Vittorio Sacerdoti, co-star of a fascinating story and a not very well-known episode of the Second World War.
As is public knowledge, in 1943 the King of Italy overthrew Benito Mussolini and negotiated a surrender with the Germans. Finally, the peninsula was divided in two: the south went to the Allies while the center and north were under Nazi aegis. This space included, among others, Rome, which included an ancient Jewish community grouped mainly in a space labeled "the ghetto", on the bank of the Tiber River.
From that moment on, the Nazis promoted a genuine hunt against the local Jewish community that until then had been saved from the "final solution." For all this and in order to avoid deportation, numerous Jews took refuge in the properties of neighbors and friends, as well as in churches, monasteries, convents and hospitals administered by the Catholic Church, among which was the Hospital Fatebenefratelli, located very close to the ghetto area.
This hospital was directed by Dr. Giovanni Borromeo who was accompanied by two young professionals: The doctor. Adriano Ossicini and the Jewish doctor Dr. Vittorio Sacerdoti. On October 16, 1943, several members of the Jewish community crossed the bridge and when the director of the Dr. Borromeo Hospital asked them about their ailments, one of them ironically responded that they suffered from "Kesselring syndrome" in reference to the commander. German Albert Kesserling, the general responsible for maintaining control of occupied Italy.
This reference motivated the imagination and audacity of Dr. Borromeo and his two collaborators Drs. Sacerdoti and Ossicini. As is widely known, the Nazis spread the insidious lie that Jews spread disease. Well, this group of doctors crystallized this idea into a weapon, pointing it against the Nazi occupier himself and inventing a pathology in the Jewish population that totally did not exist in reality.
With the collaboration of the Spanish order of the Brothers of Saint John, these professionals set up a special pavilion in said hospital for the treatment of infectious diseases in order to hide the greatest number of Jews and avoid their arrest by the Gestapo. In this space, the Jewish patients who, according to the aforementioned doctors, suffered from the disease, remained isolated. "K" syndrome, a contagious and deadly virus that also left patients with very serious consequences.
When the Nazis entered this area, they were informed that there were dozens of infected people who could spread the disease. Many of them thought it was cancer or tuberculosis, so they immediately left and directed their steps toward other spaces.
The "K" label and its associations
The label "K" is certainly ironic and its promoters point out that it was awarded in reference to the German commander Albert Kesserling, the Nazi general in charge of maintaining control of occupied Italy, others estimate that the K comes from the surname of the lieutenant colonel of the SS Herbet Kappler, who led the raids against the Jews. In addition to this, the choice of this label was not accidental and reflects the vision and insight of the aforementioned doctors. The "K" It evoked memories in Nazi space of Koch's disease, which was wreaking havoc on German troops operating in Hungary and Poland.
The three doctors left nothing to chance, given that the Nazis frequently carried out routine searches in hospitals looking for Jews, partisans and anti-fascists. In accordance with hospital regulations, they created patient admission documents, charts, results of examinations performed, a review of the drugs administered, as well as medical records that reflected the symptoms and that indicated the inexorable advance of this pathology but that were obviously far away. to reflect the genuine state of the "sick person."
As I previously noted, they established a specific ward in the hospital, a completely isolated unit in which strict anti-infective measures governed and prevailed. No one was authorized to enter this room except Dr. Borromeo and a nurse, all under strict security regulations. During visits and inspections, the suspected patients were trained to cough very frequently and thus keep the Germans away.
The Syndrome trick "K" It remained until June 14, 1944, when the Allied troops liberated Rome. At that time all the alleged patients survived and were discharged. According to one source, at that time, Dr. Vittorio Sacerdoti and his colleagues had saved more than 100 lives. In the recitals of the medal awarded to him by the B'nai Brith, he is directly involved in the salvation of 45 Jews.
Echoes and Recognitions
- The 21 of June of 2016, The Raoul Wallenberg Foundation recognized the Fatebenefratelli Hospital while House of Life, a distinction granted to those institutions that served as refuge for thousands of people during the Holocaust, even at the risk of the lives of their directors and managers.
- Dr Vittorio Sacerdoti He continued working as a doctor both at the Fatebenefratelli and other hospitals and serving the Jewish community of the Rome ghetto. He died in 2005 at the age of 90 and was buried with full honors by the Hebrew community in the Jewish cemetery of Ancora. As I pointed out at the beginning of these reflections, a few days ago he justly became a creditor of the medal of merit for the salvation of Jews awarded by B'nai Brit and the Israel Agrarian Fund.
- El Dr. Giovanni Borromeo He was public health advisor in Rome, after the war he received The Silver Medal for Civil Valor of Italy and in 2004 the Yad Vashem Institute of Jerusalem awarded him the honorable title of Right among the Nations for having personally saved five people from the Holocaust. He passed away at the young age of 63 years old.
- El Dr. Adriano Ossicini He specialized in psychiatry and later successfully entered Italian political life in the 1990s, becoming a Senator as well as Minister of Family and Social Solidarity. In 2005 he published his memoirs in the volume An island in the Tiber. He died in 2019 at the age of 99.
- The memorable feat of these three professionals was reflected in the 50-minute documentary that the filmmaker presented in 2021. Stephen Edwards under the label K syndrome, in which interviews with the protagonists of this fascinating story, their children and the survivors emerge.
All the alleged patients survived the Holocaust in merit of the scale of values, daring and cunning of Dr. Vittorio Sacerdoti and his colleagues who more than crystallized their Hippocratic Oath.