Father Rufino Niccacci, O.F.M. (1911–1976) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest, born in Deruta, who shielded persecuted Jews during the Holocaust.

World War II

In September 1943, Niccacci was the Father Guardian of the Franciscan Monastery of San Damiano in

Assisi Assisi (, also , ; from la, Asisium) is a town and ''comune'' of Italy in the Province of Perugia in the Umbria region, on the western flank of Monte Subasio. It is generally regarded as the birthplace of the Latin poet Propertius, born aroun ...

. At the direction of Bishop Giuseppe Placido Nicolini and Aldo Brunacci, secretary to the bishop and chairman of the Committee to Aid Refugees, Fr. Niccacci provided Jews with false identities and gave them sanctuary in monasteries and convents. After the war, Niccacci established a small settlement for destitute Christian and Jewish families in Montenero, outside of Assisi, and served as a parish priest in his home town of Deruta, Umbria.

Legacy

In April 1974, Yad Vashem in Israel named him as one of the

Righteous among 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 sav ...

. On April 11, 1983, President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

, in remarks to the

American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, also known as the American Gathering, is the largest organization of Holocaust survivors in North America. It functions as an umbrella organization for survivor resources, o ...

, said:

The picturesque town of Assisi, Italy, sheltered and protected 300 Jews. Father Rufino Niccacci organized the effort, hiding people in his monastery and in the homes of parishioners. A slip of the tongue by a single informant could have condemned the entire village to the camps, yet they did not yield.

Niccacci's home town of Deruta has named a street Via Padre Rufino Niccacci in his honor. Niccacci was a subject and the narrator of '' The Assisi Underground'', a book written in 1978 by Alexander Ramati about Assisi's efforts to save Jewish refugees.Alexander Ramati, The Assisi Underground--The Priests Who Saved Jews. New York: Stein and Day, 1978. In 1985, the book was made into a movie of the same title. More recently, the story of the Assisi underground is the subject of an Italian novel, ''La società delle mandorle: Come Assisi salvò i suoi ebrei'' (2007) by Mirti Paolo.

World War II

Legacy

References

Further reading

See also