Father Rufino Niccacci, O.F.M. (1911–1976) was an Italian Roman Catholic priest who shielded persecuted Jews during the Holocaust.

World War II

In September 1943, Niccacci was the Father Guardian of the Franciscan Monastery

Monastery

Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...

 of San Damiano in Assisi

Assisi

- Churches :* The Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi is a World Heritage Site. The Franciscan monastery, il Sacro Convento, and the lower and upper church of St Francis were begun immediately after his canonization in 1228, and completed in 1253...

. At the direction of Bishop Placido Nicolini and Aldo Brunacci, secretary to the bishop and chairman of the Committee to Aid Refugees, Fr. Niccacci provided Jews with false identities and gave them sanctuary in monasteries and convents.

After the war, Niccacci established a small settlement for destitute Christian and Jewish families in Montenero, outside of Assisi, and served as a parish priest in his home town of Deruta

Deruta

Deruta is a hill town and comune in the Province of Perugia in the Umbria region of central Italy. Long known as a center of refined maiolica manufacture, Deruta remains known for its ceramics, which are exported worldwide.-History:...

, Italy.

Legacy

In April 1974, Yad Vashim in Israel named him as one of the Righteous among Nations.

On April 11, 1983, President Ronald Reagan, in remarks to the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, said,

The picturesque town of Assisi, Italy, sheltered and protected 300 Jews. Father Rufino Niccacci organized the effort, hiding people in his monastery and in the homes of parishioners. A slip of the tongue by a single informant could have condemned the entire village to the camps, yet they did not yield.

Niccacci's home town of Deruta, Italy has named a street Via Padre Rufino Niccacci in his honor.

Niccacci was a subject and the narrator of The Assisi Underground

The Assisi Underground

The Assisi Underground: The Priests Who Rescued Jews is a 1978 novel written by Alexander Ramati based on a true-life account, told by Father Rufino Niccacci, of events surrounding the effort to hide 300 Jews in the town of Assisi, Italy during World War II.-Plot:In the Italian town of Assisi...

, a book written in 1978 by Alexander Ramati about Assisi's efforts to save Jewish refugees. In 1985, the book was made into a movie of the same title. More recently, the story of the Assisi underground is the subject of an Italian novel, La società delle mandorle: Come Assisi salvò i suoi ebrei (2007) by Mirti Paolo.

Further reading

• Samuel Oliner, Do Unto Others: Extraordinary Acts of Ordinary People, 2003, Westview Press
  Westview Press
  Westview Press is an American publishing house. It publishes textbooks and scholarly works for an academic audience.Westview was founded in 1975 in Boulder, Colorado by Fred Praeger. The press was sold in 1991 to SCS Communications. HarperCollins acquired the company in 1995. Since 1998, it has...
  
  , ISBN 0813339847, at pp. 238–39.
• Susan Zuccotti, The Italians and the Holocaust: Persecution, Rescue, and Survival, 1996, University of Nebraska Press
  University of Nebraska Press
  The University of Nebraska Press, founded in 1941, is a publisher of scholarly and popular-press books. It is the second-largest state university press in the United States and, including private institutions, ranks among the 10 largest university presses in the United States...
  
  , ISBN 0803299117, at pp. 214–15.

See also

• List of individuals and groups assisting Jews during the Holocaust