On 21 June, the Fatebenefratelli Hospital on Tiber Island was awarded the title “House of Life” by the Raoul Wallenberg International Foundation, in memory of the Hospital’s contribution to saving dozens of Jewish lives during the Nazi persecutions.

The event was sponsored by the Rome Jewish Community, the Holocaust Museum Foundation.

The “House of Life” unveiling ceremony was held in the Sala Assunta at the Fatebenefratelli Hospital on Tiber Island in the presence of two survivors, Gabriele Sonnino and Luciana Tedesco.

In the course of the ceremony, Prof. Giovanni Borromeo was commemorated for the way he saved dozens of Jews who had escaped the roundup organised by the Nazis on 16 October 1943, by hiding them in a hospital unit. For the occasion, he dreamed up a highly infectious disease to protect them, which he called “K’s Disease”, where the letter K stood for the German commander, Herbert Kappler or the German general, Albert Kesselring. To avoid infection, the SS soldiers did not break into the isolation unit.

Among his medical colleagues, still alive today, was one of the principal players in these events – the psychiatrist, former Partisan, and former Senator, Prof. Adriano Ossicini. 

Antifascist from the outset, Giovanni Borromeo played an active part in the Resistance; working with the Polish Prior of Tiber Island at the time, Brother Maurizio Bialek, he had an underground radio receiver installed in the cellars of the Hospital, which was in constant contact with the Partisans in the Lazio region. He obtained false papers for the Jews staying in the Hospital and their families, and arranged for their personal safety by placing them in various convents and monasteries.

For his merits, in 2004, Yad Vashem honoured Prof. Giovanni Borromeo as “Righteous among Nations”.

The ceremony was also attended by the Minister-Counsellor for Public Affairs and Policies of the Israeli Embassy, Rafi Erdeich, the President of the Rome Jewish community, Ruth Dureghello, its Vice President, Ruben della Rocca, the Rome Cultural Councillor, Giorgia Calò, the President of the Rome Holocaust Museum Foundation (Fondazione Museo della Shoah di Roma), Mario Venezia, the Wallenberg Foundation’s Vice Presidents for Europe Silvia Costantini and Jesus Colina, the Deputy Operational President of the Fatebenefratelli Hospital on Tiber Island, Brother Giampietro Luzzato, the General Manager of the Hospital, Marco Longo and Development Director of the Hospital, Paolo Verdicchio.