Pope recognizes Righteous among the Nations as blessed
On May 10, 2012, among those recognized as a model of faith is a new blessed, Odoardo Focherini from Carpi, Italy, who saved many Jews during the Shoah and died in a Nazi camp in 1944.
Odoardo Focherini (1907-1944) was a father of seven and a very active lay Catholic. From 1942, he with others activated a network to help Italian Jews and Polish Jews who had arrived in Italy to escape to Switzerland. The center of the network was in Genoa and it received the active support of the Cardinal Archbishop of the city, Mgr. Pietro Boetto. Focherini received the consent of his wife for his activities favoring Jewish refugees and both knew the risks he was running. He worked closely with Don Dante Sala, who was also recognized as a Righteous among the Nations in 1969 (see Yad VaShem entry on Don Sala here).
Arrested in 1944 while actively assisting a Jewish refugee to hide and flee, he was imprisoned in a number of different internment camps and finally died of an infection. He was honored by Yad Vashem with the title of Righteous among the Nations in 1969. He is the first Italian Righteous among the Nations to be beatified.
Read an article by Giorgio Bernadelli in Italian here
See video clip here
Memorial to the Jesuit Righteous Among the Nations