Bussa Eugenio

Bussa, Don Eugenio Don Eugenio Bussa, born in 1904, in the Garibaldi quarter in Milan, had served as vice-director of Patronage of Sant’Antonio, in Milan, since 1928, and as director of the institution since 1937. The school was a boarding school for children of poor manual workers and clerks who lived away from their families, and Don Bussa admitted Jewish children there, as well. He opened a school in February 1944, in Serina, in the Bergamo province and more than 100 boys were sheltered there, among them Jews. He also sheltered several Jews at his home in Milan. Bussa extended help to non-Jews who were persecuted for political reasons. Bussa’s activities did not remain a secret. The help he extended to Jews and partisans led to his arrest on November 8, 1944. Only through the intervention of Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster, Archbishop of Milan, was he released. The association of the former pupils of Don Bussa succeeded in locating Alberto Fazio, one of the Jewish youths who had found shelter at the institution during 1943-1944. This former student confirmed that Father Eugenio Bussa risked his life in order to save persecuted Jews. Don Eugenio Bussa died in 1977. On March 28, 1990, Yad Vashem recognized Don Eugenio Bussa as Righteous Among the Nations.