“A lie with a good intention that saved the lives of dozens of Jews, perhaps fifty, destined for concentration camps,” he added.
This incredible story of survival occurred in Rome in October 1943, during the WWII. Some Jews managed to flee the ghetto roundup and sought support, where they knew there was a hospital. The Fatebenefratelli dell’Isola Tiberina was just opposite the synagogue and was always a health reference for the Roman Jewish community.
It was in this hospital that Victor Sacerdotti, a Jewish doctor who had been removed from the Ancona hospital due to racial laws, along with the head of internal medicine, Giovanni Borromeoand his student Adriano OssiciniThey invented this fake disease.
The fugitive Jews were received at the hospital, where they were confined in the Sala Assunta, an area dedicated to the absolute isolation of the presumed sick, and they were instructed on how to fake the symptoms of the disease well.
“The doctors’ description of the symptoms terrified the Germans who gave up further checking the rooms of the supposedly hospitalized patients under isolation,” Manfellotto said.
“This saved the lives of people who would otherwise be condemned to certain death and is an example of the link that ethics and medicine should always unite,” said the doctor.
Source: Ambito
