Angelo Donati
Encyclopedia
San Marino
San Marino, officially the Republic of San Marino , is a state situated on the Italian Peninsula on the eastern side of the Apennine Mountains. It is an enclave surrounded by Italy. Its size is just over with an estimated population of over 30,000. Its capital is the City of San Marino...
Republic in Paris.
Biography
Donati was born in ModenaModena
Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....
. Himself of Jewish religion, he was famous for saving Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
from Nazi persecution in Italian-occupied France
Italian-occupied France
Italian-occupied France was an area of south-eastern France occupied by Fascist Italy in two stages during World War II. The occupation lasted from June 1940 until the Armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces on September 8, 1943, when Italian troops on French soil retreated under pressure...
between 1942 and 1943.
He came from one of the most important families of the Jewish Community of Modena, whose origins go back to the second half of the 16th century, when Donato Donati, who lived in Finale Emilia
Finale Emilia
Finale Emilia is a comune in the Province of Modena in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about 35 km north of Bologna and about 35 km northeast of Modena...
, received from Duke Cesare d'Este
Cesare d'Este
Cesare d'Este was Duke of Modena and Reggio from 1597 until his death. During his reign, in 1598, the House of Este lost the Duchy of Ferrara.-Biography:...
the permit to introduce the planting of buckwheat
Buckwheat
Buckwheat refers to a variety of plants in the dicot family Polygonaceae: the Eurasian genus Fagopyrum, the North American genus Eriogonum, and the Northern Hemisphere genus Fallopia. Either of the latter two may be referred to as "wild buckwheat"...
in the Duchy of Modena and Reggio
Duchy of Modena and Reggio
The Duchy of Modena and Reggio |Italian]] state that existed from 1452 to 1859, with a break between 1796 and 1814. It was ruled by the noble House of Este, from 1814 Austria-Este.-House of Este:...
.
Angelo's father, Salvatore, was a merchant; among his seven brothers, Lazzaro was a banker, Mandolino manager of Conceria Pellami, Amedeo president of Modena Accountants, Federico a lawyer, Benvenuto a professor of law philosophy, Nino an industrialist of straw hats in Florence. Among his cousins Donato was president of Macerata University, Mario a world-famous surgeon, Pio a lawyer and member of Italian Parliament for the Italian Socialist Party
Italian Socialist Party
The Italian Socialist Party was a socialist and later social-democratic political party in Italy founded in Genoa in 1892.Once the dominant leftist party in Italy, it was eclipsed in status by the Italian Communist Party following World War II...
and antifascist. Among his uncles Lazzaro was a banker and from 1911 to 1932 member of the executive board of Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde, Augusto was a lawyer and president of Pio Albergo Trivulzio and the orphanage of Martinitt and Stelline from 1900 to his sudden death in 1903. His nephew Enrico Donati
Enrico Donati
Enrico Donati was an American Surrealist painter and sculptor of Italian birth.-Life and work:Enrico Donati studied economics at the Università degli Studi, Pavia, and in 1934 moved to the USA, where he attended the New School for Social Research and the Art Students League of New York...
was an important surrealist artist, who died in New York in 2008.
After graduating in law and practicing banking in Milan and Turin he left for the war in May 1915, he fought in the trenches as a captain in infantry, in 1916 he went into aviation and accomplished many war missions, he was then sent to France with linkage duties between the Italian and French armies.
In 1919 he settled in Paris and became a capable manager of various companies, both in Italy and France. From 1925 to 1932 he was general Consul of the Republica of San Marino, from 1932 to 1939 he was president of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Paris, a duty he had to leave for the fascist racial laws against the Jews. He was awarded the title of Grand’Ufficiale of the Italian Crown and the San Marino title of Commendatore dell’Ordine di Sant'Agata, while the French Government awarded him in 1936 the title of Commandeur of the Legion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
.
In 1927 he beat the altitude world record flying with his airplane to 11.827 meters.
Aid to the Jews, 1942-1943
In 1940 Donati left Paris before the entrance of the German troupes, went to CauteretsCauterets
Cauterets is a spa town, a ski resort and a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in south-western France.-Geography:Cauterets is located southwest of Lourdes in the beautiful valley of the Gave de Cauterets and borders the Pyrenees National Park....
in Hautes-Pyrénées
Hautes-Pyrénées
Hautes-Pyrénées is a department in southwestern France. It is part of the Midi-Pyrénées region.-History:...
, then to Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
where he was the best man in the wedding of Piero Sacerdoti
Piero Sacerdoti
Piero Sacerdoti has been an Italian insurer and university professor, general manager of Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà in Milan from 1949 to his death.- Biography :Son of Ing...
with Ilse Klein on August 14, 1940 and fled to Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
, which was occupied by Italian troupes on November 18, 1942 together with the departments of Isère, Hautes-Alpes, Basses-Alpes, Alpes-Maritimes, Haute-Savoie, Var and Corsica, and partially of Vaucluse and Drôme, following the allied landing operation in Algeria and Marocco. In Nice he was director of the Franco-Italian Bank.
After the entrance of the Italian troupes in Nice, Donati, who added to his personal prestige good relations and acquaintances in Italian military and diplomatic milieus, took charge of the future of the Jews. Every morning two members of the Committee for help to the refugees ("Committee Dubouchage") together with rabbi Saltiel took him documents, asked for visas, and discussed with him about actions to protect the Jew in the occupied Departments.
Thanks to the information received by Donati, the general consul of Italy Alberto Calisse succeeded in opposing effectively the decisions of French authorities who wanted to deport the Jews to Poland under German pressures, at the point that the "Committee Dubouchage" printed a document with the synagogue visa which the French police had to accept because authorized by the Italians.
The protests of the German authorities in Rome forced Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
to create a Crown Office of Racial Police in Nice, assigned to Inspector Guido Lospinoso. After arriving in Nice Lospinoso met with Donati, who explained the difficult situation and made him understand that he was the best informed person on the facts.
When the Vichy Government, under German pressure, ordered to the prefet of Nice, Marcel Rubière, to arrest all the foreigner Jews in Côte d'Azur, general Averna di Gualtieri, who represented the supreme Italian commandment in Vichy, cancelled all the decisions against the Jews in the Italian occupation zone because "these decisions have to be taken only by Italian military occupation authorities.".
Moreover, after two young members of French militia tried to attack the Jews who were leaving the Synagogue, Barranco, head of Italian police, sent four carabinieri
Carabinieri
The Carabinieri is the national gendarmerie of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations, and is a branch of the armed forces.-Early history:...
to protect the synagogue.
These actions were the Italian way to show their independence from the Germans, but you can discern Donati's continuous intelligent and diplomatic action. All the German telegrams and letters expressed rage and indignation.
In spite of the capture order by the German police, Donati continued his saving action: he succeeded in sending 2.500 Jews away from Nice, transferring them, avoiding the areas occupied by the Germans, in the "forced residency" of Saint-Martin-Vésubie
Saint-Martin-Vésubie
Saint-Martin-Vésubie is a commune of the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France.-History:San Martin first appears in recorded history in the 12th century, although there are archaeological remnants of a Romanized indigenous population dating back to the 1st century.The medieval castrum,...
in Alpes-Maritimes
Alpes-Maritimes
Alpes-Maritimes is a department in the extreme southeast corner of France.- History : was created by Octavian as a Roman military district in 14 BC, and became a full Roman province in the middle of the 1st century with its capital first at Cemenelum and subsequently at Embrun...
department. The French authorities had received the order not to interfere with the transfer. On this episode the French director André Waksman has made the film for the television A pause during the Holocaust, shown for the first time in Paris on December 4, 2009.
Donati's activity in Nice became a legend, his name became a beacon. The members of the French militia and his enemies called him "the Pope of the Jews".
The 1943 rescue plan
At the beginning of 1943 Donati prepared an ambitious plan to transfer thousands of Jews from southern France to PalestinePalestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
, with the support of the Italian, Vatican, English and American authorities and talked about it in Rome at the beginning of august in the Vatican with the English and American ambassadors, Osborne and Titman, thanks to the reserved and strenuous work of the French Capuchin Père Marie-Benoît
Père Marie-Benoît
Père Marie-Benoît , born Pierre Péteul, was a Capuchin Franciscan friar who helped smuggle approximately 4,000 Jews into safety from Nazi-occupied Southern France...
who took care of DELASEM
DELASEM
Delegation for the Assistance of Jewish Emigrants or DELASEM, was a Jewish resistance organization that worked in Italy between 1939 and 1947...
(Jewish relief organization).
The project planned to introduce into Italy the maximum possible number of Jewish refugees, and transfer them in Northern Africa with four ships (Duilio, Giulio Cesare, Saturnia, Vulcania) paid by the Jewish Joint Committee. In Rome passports were prepared and Badoglio government had chosen the sites where the refugees would be given hospitality and had assured the feasibility of the operation because weeks should pass before the Armistice signed on September 3 with the Allied should be disclosed, so that the Italians could prepare their defense against the Germans.
Instead on September 8 U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
, without previously informing the Italian government, disclosed the news of the Armistice. Donati, who had planned to return to Nice to organize the transfer, was luckily stopped in Florence because in Nice the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
was waiting for him to arrest him, his apartment was ravaged and robbed. Searched for by the Germans also in Italy, he stayed in hiding for three month first in Tuscany and then in Lombardy, then he succeeded in taking refuge in Switzerland on October 14, 1943 by Stabio with some nephews.
From Montreux
Montreux
Montreux is a municipality in the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.It is located on Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps and has a population, , of and nearly 90,000 in the agglomeration.- History :...
, where he lived, Donati tried to find out what happened to the deported Jews putting pressure on the International Red Cross and meeting in Bern with the Apostolic Nuncio and English, American and Italian diplomats.
The diplomat 1945-1960
In agreement with the Italian ambassador in Paris Giuseppe Saragat (later President of the Italian Republic) he led the negotiations with the French government for assisting and liberating the Italian prisoners and civil internees. He was also appointed Chargé d'Affaires of San Marino Republic in Paris and, in November 1953, promoted to Plenipotentiary Minister.
Thanks to the good relation with the Apostolic Nonce in Paris Angelo Roncalli (afterwards Pope John XXIII
Pope John XXIII
-Papal election:Following the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, Roncalli was elected Pope, to his great surprise. He had even arrived in the Vatican with a return train ticket to Venice. Many had considered Giovanni Battista Montini, Archbishop of Milan, a possible candidate, but, although archbishop...
), he helped in 1953 in the solution of the Affaire Finaly, two Jewish children who had been saved from deportation by Catholic nuns, but that they didn’t want to give back to their uncles after the war because they had been baptized.
Donati forcefully refused the role of a hero or declarations of gratitude but received declarations and letters of gratitude from the Jewish organizations of Nice and individual Jews.
He adopted two Jewish children nine and ten years old, whose German Jewish parents had been deported from France and killed in Nazi German concentration camps located on occupied Polish soil. Donati's servant, Francesco Moraldo, hid them in Creppo in the municipality of Triora
Triora
Triora is an elite member of I Borghi Piú Belli d'Italia, a list of the top 100 most beautiful medieval citadels in Italy. It is also a member of Touring Club Italia Bandiere Arancioni, a similarly prestigious club which lists the best places for tourists to enjoy...
in Liguria, his birth place, after Donati's flight to Switzerland.
Donati died in Paris. On January 27, 2004, Modena Municipality, the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, the Istituto Storico di Modena and the Jewish Community of Modena and Reggio Emilia organized a Study Convention in memory of Angelo Donati and an exhibition with photos.
Honours
- Grand'Ufficiale of the Italian Crown
- Commendatore of the Ordine di Sant'Agata of San Marino
- Commandeur de la Legion d'honneur, 1936
- Commendatore dell'Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana, November 23, 1950
- Gold Metal to the civil merit in remembrance, January 26, 2004, with the following motivation by the President of the Italian Republic Ciampi: During the second world war in the area of France occupied by Italian troupes, Angelo Donati, with indomitable courage succeeded in saving, in collaboration with Italian civil and military authorities, thousands of Jews of different nationalities, protecting their lives menaced by deportation in nazi extermination camps. With generosity of mind and passionate commitment he gave life and coherent affirmation to the values of liberty and justice. Noble and shining example of elevated civic virtues.
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol VI, pag. 166
- André Waksman (director), film for the television HD-TV A pause during the Holocaust, Italy/France, 2009, 59'
- Flaminia Lubin (director), 50 Italiani, Film Kairòs, Italy, 2009, 95', diffused by Rai 2 on January 27, 2010 for the Day of Memory (Angelo Donati is cited after 1 hour and 8 minutes)
- Paolo Veziano, Angelo Donati, Un ebreo modenese tra Italia e Francia, catalogo della mostra allestita in occasione del convegno di studi in onore di Angelo Donati, Modena, 27 gennaio 2004
- Edmond Fleg e Raoul Elia, Introduzione alla Haggadà di Pesach, Sefer Angelo, Milano, Editrice Fondazione Sally Mayer, 1962
- Elena Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando. L'armistizio dell'8 settembre, Bologna, Il mulino, 2003, nuova edizione ampliata
- Daniel Carpi, Between Mussolini and Hitler. The Jews and the Italian Authorities in France and Tunisia, Hannover-London, Brandeis University Press, 1994
- Maria Sofia Casnedi - Fabio Della Seta, Cara Sophie, Udine, Paolo Gaspari ed., 1966
- Alberto Cavaglion, Nella notte straniera. Gli ebrei di St Martin Vésubie, Cuneo, L'Arciere, 2003 quarta edizione aggiornata, trad. francese Nice, Editions Serre, 1993
- Liliana Picciotto Fargion, Il libro della memoria. Gli Ebrei deportati dall'Italia (1943–1945), Milano, Mursia, 2002, nuova ed. aggiornata
- Paolo Frajese, L'ultimo rifugio: gli ebrei in Francia durante l'occupazione italiana, documentario del TG1, 13 novembre 1997
- Madeleine Kahn, Angelo Donati. De l'oasis italienne au lieu du crime des allemands, Paris, Editions Bénévent, 2004
- Serge Klarsfeld, Vichy-Auschwitz. 1942-1944, Paris, Fayard, 2001, nuova edizione ampliata
- Jean Marie G.Le Clézio, Étoile errante, Paris, Gallimard, 1992, trad. italiana di Ela Basso, Milano, Saggiatore, 2000
- François Maspero, II tempo degli Italiani, Torino, Einaudi, 1998
- Jean Louis Panicacci, Les Alpes Maritimes de 1939 à 1945, Nice, Editions Serre,1989
- Léon Poliakov - Jacques Sabille, La condizione degli ebrei sotto l'occupazione italiana, Milano, Edizioni di Comunità, 1956
- Davide Rodogno, Il nuovo ordine mediterraneo. Le politiche di occupazione dell'Italia fascista in Europa (1940–1943), Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2003
- Hélène Saulnier, Nizza occupata, in "Les Langues Néo-Latines", LXXXIX, 1995, pp. 49–58.
- Michele Sarfatti, Gli ebrei nell'Italia fascista, Torino, Einaudi, 2000
- Jonathan Steinberg, Tutto o niente. L'Asse e gli ebrei nei territori occupati 1941-1943, Milano, Mursia, 1997
- Olga Tarcali, Ritorno a Erfurt, racconto di una giovinezza interrotta (1935–1945), Torino, Harmattan Italia, 2004 (ISBN 88-88684-50-6)
- Klaus Voigt, Il rifugio precario. Gli esuli in Italia dal 1933 al 1945, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1993 e 1996, due voll.
- Paolo Veziano, Ombre di confine. L'emigrazione clandestina degli ebrei stranieri dalla Riviera dei Fiori verso la Costa Azzurra (1938–1940), Pinerolo, Alzavi, 2001
- Susan ZuccottiSusan ZuccottiDr. Susan Sessions Zuccotti is an American historian, specializing in studies of the Holocaust. She holds a PhD in Modern European History from Columbia University. She has won a National Jewish Book Award for Holocaust Studies, and the Premio Acqui Storia – Primo Lavoro for Italians and the...
, The Holocaust, the French and the Jews, New York, Basic Books, 1993