Italian Jesuit recognized as “Righteous among the Nations”


Yad Vashem recognized Jesuit Catholic priest, Father Raffaele de Ghantuz Cubbe, as a Righteous among the Nations on December 14,2010 in a ceremony in Rome.

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Israeli ambassador to the Vatican, Mr. Mordechay Lewy, handed the medal on behalf of Yad Vashem to the great nephew of the Jesuit in the presence of Jesuits, Holocaust survivors and leaders of the Jewish community in Rome.

During the Second World War, Father Cubbe, with the help of his Jesuit brothers, hid three Jewish children, Marco Pavoncello, and two brothers, Mario and Graziano Sonnino in a Jesuit high school. The Jesuit endangered his own life and the lives of his brothers by hiding these children among the pupils at the high school he directed. The priest never tried to convert them and at the end of the war they continued their studies in this same school.

Two of the saved children attended the ceremony, the third having passed away this past year.

The president of the Jewish community of Rome, Mr. Riccardo Pacifici, was present and remembered once again that his own father had been saved by Catholic priests. He pointed out that among the Righteous recognized by Yad Vashem there were 487 Italians.

Father Raffaele de Ghantuz Cubbe, was born in Italy in 1904 and died in 1983.

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