Don Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name *Don, Benin, a town in Benin *Don, Dang, a vill ...

Raimondo Viale (1907 – 25 September 1984) was an Italian

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

priest, whose name is entered among the

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sa ...

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

for his work on behalf of the

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

during the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

.Raimondo Viale
– his activity to save Jews' lives during the

, at

websiteIsrael Gutman, Bracha Rivlin, e Liliana Picciotto, I giusti d'Italia: i non-ebrei che salvarono gli ebrei, 1943-45 (Milano: Mondadori, 2006), pp. 235-36

Biography

Raimondo Viale was born in 1907 in Limone Piemonte,

Province of Cuneo Cuneo (Italian), or Coni (Piedmontese), is a province in the southwest of the Piedmont region of Italy. To the west it borders on the French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur ( departments of Alpes-Maritimes, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and Haut ...

. After being ordained a priest, he was assigned to curate in the parish of Borgo San Dalmazzo. In the 1930s, his cultural and social commitments lead him into conflict with the fascist authorities. Already a victim of intimidation and beatings, in 1940 Viale was arrested and convicted for having delivered a sermon against the entrance into the war against France. He spent 15 months in confinement at

Agnone Agnone is a ''comune'' in the province of Isernia, in the Molise region of southern Italy, some northwest of Campobasso. Agnone is known for the manufacture of bells by the Marinelli Bell Foundry. The town of Agnone proper is complemented with ...

Molise it, Molisano (man) it, Molisana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 ...

before he returned to Borgo San Dalmazzo. On 18 September 1943, he witnessed the arrival of a thousand Jewish refugees from neighboring

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

through the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Swi ...

. Of the refugees, 349 of them were captured by the German military authorities at

Valdieri Valdieri is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Cuneo in the Italian region Piedmont, located about southwest of Turin and about southwest of Cuneo, on the border with France. It is part of the Valle Gesso. Valdieri borders the follow ...

and confined in a former barracks in Borgo San Dalmazzo, the Borgo San Dalmazzo concentration camp. On the morning of 21 November, the 349 prisoners begin their journey to Auschwitz (only nine of them survived). In close touch with Don Francesco Repetto and DELASEM (Delegazione Assistenza Emigranti Ebrei - "Delegation for the Assistance of Jewish Emigrants") of

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

, Don Viale then dedicated his life to the hundreds of Jews scattered, hiding in the valleys of

Cuneo Cuneo (; pms, Coni ; oc, Coni/Couni ; french: Coni ) is a city and ''comune'' in Piedmont, Northern Italy, the capital of the province of Cuneo, the fourth largest of Italy’s provinces by area. It is located at 550 metres (1,804 ft) in ...

in mountain huts, materially and emotionally assisting them. Don Viale helped Jews reach

where Don Repetto was able to help them escape to Switzerland.

Honors

On 7 August 2000 he received the honor

from the

Institute in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

. A square is named after him at Borgo San Dalmazzo. He was featured as the protagonist in Nuto Revelli’s book ''The Just Priest''.

References

External links

Raimondo Viale
– his activity to save Jews' lives during the

, at

website {{DEFAULTSORT:Viale, Raimondo 1907 births 1984 deaths Catholic Righteous Among the Nations Italian anti-war activists Italian prisoners and detainees Italian Righteous Among the Nations People from Limone Piemonte 20th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests