Perlasca Characteristics

It did not matter what race, religion, or nationality a person was to Giorgio Perlasca. He believed you were a person worth protecting. He risked his own freedom repeatedly to protect people. Perlasca cared about people he didn’t even know. He was brave enough to stay in unsafe situations to protect these people.
He lived from 1910 to 1992. He was born and died in Italy. At a young age he followed the principles of fascism, but changed, he changed his perspective on fascism in his late twenties. During his life he traveled throughout Europe. The most significant events of his life happened in Hungary. It was in Hungary, where his true characteristics really became evident.
In the early 1920s, Perlasca joined with Mussolini and the Italian
He was a livestock broker. He worked very hard to provide meat for the men who were fighting in the war. In this job he traveled all over Eastern Europe. From the little that is known from this time in his life, it is obvious that being a hard worker was one of his many traits.
When Hitler invaded Hungary he was in Budapest. He was arrested there and taken to a camp near the Austrian border. He escaped from this camp after three days and returned to Budapest. He went to the Spanish embassy seeking Spanish citizenship because he knew he needed protection from the Nazi’s. He was intelligent and he knew he had the legal right to be a Spanish citizen because he fought for Franco in his younger years.
At the Spanish Embassy he saw something that changed the course of his life. It was at the Embassy that his strongest traits of caring about people and bravery really became evident. He saw thousands of Jews around the Spanish Embassy. Inside the Embassy he received his Spanish citizenship and was free to go to Spain. However, he found out that the Jews outside were waiting to get “letters of protection.” He was told that if they didn’t receive these “letters of protection” they would get put on trains heading to the gas chambers of
The Nazi officials made it very difficult for him to do this. He was intelligent and charming enough to work with the Nazi officials and get them to do what he wanted. He bribed, blackmailed, and charmed officials and police to help himself obtain the “letters of protection.” All the Spanish officials fled the Spanish Embassy in November of 1944 because the Russian’s were now approaching Budapest. Again, instead of fleeing with them, he stayed.
With the Spanish Embassy vacated, he posed as a Spanish diplomat himself. He made the Spanish Embassy appear like it was up and running even though he was the only one there. He used the Spanish seal to give thousands of Jews “letter of protection.” He also, rented them apartments and flew the Spanish flag. In the end he saved at least 5,500 Jews from the gas chambers.
After he died evidence was found that he had also saved 60,000 lives. A Budapest ghetto that was occupied by Jews, Hungarians, and other minorities was to be bombed by the Nazi’s. This shows that he did care about everyone and not just Jews. Information is unclear of how he protected that ghetto. However from everything I’ve learned about him, I’m sure he used his personality traits of bravery, and intelligence to protect these people that couldn’t protect