Patricia Cohen Defenders of Giovanni Palatucci,a police official heralded as the Italian Schindler for saving thousands of Jews during WWII,have pushed back at researchers who have recently characterised the heroic tale as a myth and described him as a Nazi collaborator. Historians have said one reason the Palatucci story gained momentum was that it seemed to bolster the reputation of the Roman Catholic Church,whom Jewish groups have described as having been indifferent to genocide. But Palatucci supporters,particularly within the church and among those who have promoted him for sainthood,have criticised the debunkers,saying the charges are really a veiled attack on the pope. Others say they personally knew Jews who were saved by him. In a recent article in the Vatican newspaper LOsservatore Romano,Anna Foa,a historian at La Sapienza University in Rome,suggested that in targeting Palatucci,the intention was to hit a Catholic involved in rescuing Jews. Foa also objected to the characterisation of Palatuccia police of ficial in Fiumeas a collaborator. She conceded that Palatucci may have saved only a few dozen lives instead of the 5,000 attributed to him. Even so,she wrote in the newspaper,the reduced number certainly does not transform him from a saviour into a persecutor of Jews. Palatucci was celebrated for being a powerful man who used his power to help Jews, Natalia Indrimi,the executive director of The Primo Levi Center,a non-profit organisation based in New York,said in an email response to questions. But newly available documents contradict the exploits attributed to him,she said. Records of his activity under the Germans indicate that he continued to obey orders to locate Jews in the months during which the majority of Fiumes Jews was rounded up and deported to Auschwitz. She dismissed suggestions that the centre was in any way trying to smear the Catholic Church. Yad Vashem,the Holocaust memorial in Israel,is reviewing Palatuccis status as one of the Righteous Among the Nations,an honour roll of those who rescued Jews. Last month,the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington removed a mention of him from an exhibition and the Anti-Defamation League said that an award named in honour of Palatucci would be given a new title. Foa reviewed the centres report. Did Palatucci save Jews or not? Did Palatucci denounce Jews or not? she asked. To these questions alone do we await an answer from the documents. The rest is commentary. She said there may not be more documents that testify to Palatuccis efforts simply because there was a need for secrecy among those who were helping Jews escape. The Reverend Angelo Maria Oddi,president of the Giovanni Palatucci Association in Italy,wrote a defence of Palatucci on the groups website and said the association had documentation from people whose lives he had saved. Edna Selan Epstein,a 75-year-old survivor who now lives in Chicago,sent an email to Yad Vashem to defend Palatucci. My parents, she said,both independently told me on a number of occasions that we survived in large part thanks to the help of Giovanni Palatucci. Palatucci died in the Dachau concentration camp in 1945 after he was accused by the Germans of passing plans for Fiume's post-war independence to the Allies.
