Giovanni Palatucci, head of police in the German-occupied Italian city of Fiume, is arrested by the Gestapo. Ever since the enactment of Italy’s anti-Jewish race laws in 1938, Palatucci had saved thousands of Jews by enabling emigration or arranging sanctuary, providing false documents and erasing their records so that they could not be found. Once captured, he was sentenced to death and sent to Dachau, where he died in February 1945.
A devout Catholic, in 2002 his cause for beatification was opened by the Church, a first step towards possible Sainthood. He was also commended by the Italian government and by Yad Vashem, and a street is named after him in Israel
