Giovanni Borromeo

According to his son,[2] in 1931 he was appointed director of the "Ospedali Riuniti di Roma" but was banned from accepting the position because he was not a member of the Fascist Party.

He and Prior Maurizio Bialek, continued the renovation that the hospital had begun in 1922 transforming an old medical hospice into a modern and efficient infrastructure.

The Fatebenefratelli was considered an extraterritorial zone, since it belonged to the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God that had purchased it in 1892 from the Kingdom of Italy and made it part of its worldwide chain of hospitals.

[3] Among the medical staff were two young doctors with a precarious position, Vittorio Emanuele Sacerdoti and Adriano Ossicini: they left the only known first hand recollections of life at the hospital during the war.

In 1998 Sacerdoti gave a long interview at the Shoah Foundation[4] and in 2005 Ossicini wrote a memoir entitled Un'isola sul Tevere (An Island in the Tiber).

[5] Through their memories we learn that, after the armistice of September 8, 1943, during the Nazi occupation of Rome, the Fatebenefratelli became a crucible of fugitives, carabinieri, colonial police, deserters, resistance fighters, antifascists, and eventually, after the liberation, also republican fascists.

Both Ossicini and Sacerdoti indicate that, after the armed clashes of September 8, 1943, a group of physicians at the hospital secretly organized to offer medical assistance to resistance fighters.

Mussolini was liberated by his German allies and established the Italian Social Republic (RSI) whose territory extended from south of Naples to the Alps.

According to Ossicini, he had always been suspicious of the Catholic alliance with the fascist regime and, at the time of the German occupation, leaned towards the resistance, although he never actively took part in it.

After the war he was awarded a silver Medal of Civil Valor and, forty-three years after his death, he was recognized “Righteous among the Nations” by Yad Vashem for protecting the family of his mentor, Marco Almajà.

He does not mention who was part of the group but makes clear that as the Axis' defeat became imminent, the clergy and staff at the hospital increasingly demonstrated tolerance for the efforts against the Germans.

From Ossicini's memoir it remains unclear how steady his presence at the hospital was, especially since, after September 8, his participation in the resistance fight intensified and his position became more tenuous.

In is article "October 16th, 1943", Ossicini cites a specific episode and connects it with Borromeo's actions: "I remember the heart-wrenching cry of a mother on Reginella Street.

In his deposition 10 years earlier at the Shoah Foundation, Sacerdoti had narrated an identical episode he witnessed when he got up at dawn for the morning rounds (the hospital overlooks the Jewish quarter).

It is possible that Ossicini, who also stated in the book that he was in hiding and could not remain at the hospital during the occupation, did not witness the October 16th event directly but mixed his own memories of the time with a story he had heard from Sacerdoti.

Giovanni Borromeo's story has recently become the topic of a film, "My Italian Secret," which the Italy and the Holocaust Foundation commissioned to documentary maker Oren Jacoby.The Foundation, whose mission is to "share the little known story of the role of Italy in the rescue of the Jews", has among its supporters Pave the Way and is financed by Italian American magnates[11] including Kenneth Langone and Joseph Perella who serves as its president.

[12] Following the publication of the data on Palatucci's work as an employee under the fascist regime, the Italian Social Republic and the Germans,[13] the film's protagonists remained Giovanni Borromeo and Gino Bartali.