de Rivera Achille & Giulia (Florio)

Afan de Rivera Costaguti, Achille Afan de Rivera Costaguti, Giulia During October 1943, after the German occupation of Italy, Jews from Rome were seized and deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. A local couple, Achille and Giulia (née Florio) Afan de Rivera Costaguti, descendents of a Roman-Genoese patrician family, did not remain indifferent to the sufferings of their fellow Jewish citizens. The initiative to rescue persecuted Jews belonged to Giulia, and her husband cooperated with her wholeheartedly. They managed to save four related Jewish: Fiorentino, Di Segni, Pavoncello and Sermoneta, comprising 16 persons in all. The Pavoncellos, Settimio and Clelia, and their daughters, Nicla and Renata, were taken by Giulia and Achille into their mansion situated in Piazza Mattei. They were already hiding a Jew there with a two-year-old child. On November 1943, Renata gave birth to a boy, Mario, in the cellar of the estate, assisted by Giulia. Several weeks later, after Italian Fascists had searched the house unsuccessfully, Giulia took all her wards to the house of one of her servants in the neighborhood. But there, too, it was dangerous. One night, two Fascists burst in threatening to deport all the Jews, unless they received 50,000 lire. To avoid arrest, Giulia paid them, but then she arranged for the Jews to hide in various locations, including that of the Del Buon Pastore Sisters. They remained there under her protection until the Liberation. The Costaguti mansion was adjacent to a house situated in the Old Ghetto at 27 Della Reginella Street, which was inhabited by Jews. During those days of persecution, the window of the Costaguti staircase was always left open with wooden blocks placed between the neighbors’ terrace and that window so that in case of a raid, the neighbors could quickly pass into their house. There they could remain or chose to leave through a door that was opened onto the street. After the war, the survivors maintainedvery good relations with their rescuers, Giulia and Achille Afan de Rivera Costaguti. Other residents of the Old Ghetto were also aware of their benevolence and courage. Their daughter remembers that when her parents died, the Jews closed their shops in order to go to the funeral at the church. On May 6, 2002, Yad Vashem recognized Giulia and Achille Afan De Rivera Costaguti as Righteous Among the Nations.