Facibeni Giulio

Facibeni, Don Giulio Don Giulio Facibeni, born in 1884, was the director of the Madonnina Del Grappa orphanage located in the Rifredi quarter of Florence. He cooperated in the rescue work of the Jewish-Christian aid network in Florence under the auspices of Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa. In 1933, the brothers Louis and Harry Goldman escaped from Frankfurt a/Main to Paris, France, together with their father and mother. After the occupation of France in 1940, the family wandered from place to place. In October 1943, after Italy’s surrender to the Allies, they escaped to Italy by foot across the Alps, living in the open on the mountaintop until they made their way to Florence. There a local committee consisting of local Italian Jews and Catholic priests took care of the many refugees in the city. They were placed in various Catholic institutions. Nevertheless, the Goldmans’ hiding place was discovered by the SS on November 6, 1943. While the Goldman boys succeeded in escaping, their father was caught and deported with 700 other Jews to Auschwitz. The next day Louis, 18, Harry, 16, and Willy Hartmeyer, another boy who escaped with them, were directed to the orphanage managed by Facibeni, and they remained there until the city’s liberation, on August 11, 1944. Both Willy and Louis later recalled they were hidden in the church and in the home of the clergyman in a room at the back of the house. He offered them food, and clothing, and fabricated a cover story for them as well. He arranged false papers for them, which indicated that they were war refugees, born in France to Italian parents, and therefore spoke perfect French but very little Italian. While their father was in the Italian army on the Russian front, their mother was stranded in the south of Italy behind Allied lines. Don Facibeni, of weak physique, suffered from Parkinson’s disease, but had an indomitable spirit. Once the boys were arrested by the police on suspicion of being involved in an attempt on thelives of some German soldiers. At personal risk, Don Facibeni went to the Gestapo in order to offer himself in exchange for his wards. Don Facibeni also helped rescue three other Jewish refugees. After the war Louis Goldman remained in close contact with Facibeni, never forgetting his warmth and kindness during those trying years. He also wrote a book about his rescue during the war, entitled Friends for Life (1993). Harry (Zwi) Goldman died in 1948, in Israel’s War of Independence. On September 2, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Don Giulio Facibeni as Righteous Among the Nations.