Born in Pisa to an old Sephardi family, he was posthumously awarded the Gold Medal for Military Valour, Italy's highest honor for heroism.

As a Jewish victim of fascist Italy[broken anchor] during the Second World War, Calò had lost his workshop, his home, and his family.

Acting on his moral authority as commander and as a human being, Calò opposed his fellow partisans who asked for a summary trial and execution of the prisoners.

On July 2, 1944, the prisoners were transferred by Calò and other partisans - among them, Angelo Recapito and Luigi Valentini – to the Allied Headquarters in Cortona across the frontline.

General Mark Clark, commander of the US Fifth Army, asked for two volunteers who would take messages back to the partisans in order to coordinate their activities towards the liberation of the city of Arezzo which was planned for July 14.

They succeeded in their mission and rejoined their friends, but were captured on July 14 along with a group of civilians and other partisans at Molin dei Falchi, where they had intended to spend the night with some more German prisoners.

After September 8, 1943, the German invasion army was ordered by the highest authorities not to obey the Geneva Convention nor normal rules of war, and to show no mercy towards the civilian population.

Eugenio Calò and Angelo Recapito, who both had information pertaining to the Allied forces' military plans, maintained their silence.

At the end of the day, the partisans, wounded and barely alive, along with the captured men of the village — forty-eight in all — were taken to a nearby field on the backyard of Villa Gigliosi that the German soldiers had requisitioned.

Konrad, who became after the war a deputy of the Bundestag from 1969 to 1980 as a member of Willy Brandt's SPD, had already been indicted by the Italian justice in 1967 and 1972, but the complaints had been classified.