de Beni Benedetto

De Beni, Benedetto During World War II, Captain De Beni, born in 1903, in Cosermano, in Verona province, served in the Italian army in Voroshilovgrad, Ukraine. When the Germans arrived there, in July 1942, the town became a trap for the Jews, as they were ordered to register at Gestapo headquarters. The sisters Rachel (Rusia) Turok (later Shirayev) and Sara (Daria) had been engaged in cleaning cinema ruins after heavy bombardments. The Italian soldiers stationed near the cinema noticed the two girls and took pity on them. On the night the Germans came to the Turok house to take the girls, they were not at home, because they had been warned earlier to stay away. That night all the Jews were arrested and later killed. The two girls were hidden by the Italians for the night, and then worked in the camp kitchen until Benedetto De Beni smuggled them into the train wagon that was to take the soldiers back to their homeland. When the two girls reached Udine, it was already the spring of 1943. De Beni, who had saved their lives, gave them a letter to give to his wife, Isa Cittadini, who lived in Gromo. Isa knew that the Russian girls were Jewish, but, nevertheless, she agreed to take care of them. When the girls contacted her, she sent money to enable them to come to her in Gromo, located in Val Seriana, near Bergamo. Rachel was 17 when she came to Gromo. She waited to meet De Beni, but he was deported to a German concentration camp and returned home only when the war was over. Rachel and Sara lived with Mrs. De Beni for one year, helping out with the children. Then, Sara was sent to De Beni’s relatives in Florence. She used to sell homemade sweets in the streets with one of the girls of the family. The two girls received new identities, and they remained with their rescuers until the summer of 1945. On September 8, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Benedetto De Beni as Righteous Among the Nations.