Father Borsotto, Righteous among the Nations, and Christmas


We received a magnificent story of heroism from Yad VaShem regarding Father Borsotto who revealed to his parishioners that he was hiding Jews on Christmas eve.

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The Szajdholc family – parents Solomon and Esther and their four children, Bella, Alter, Albert and Miriam – emigrated for Warsaw to Belgium on the eve of the Second World War. They lived in Brussels until the German invasion of Belgium in 1940. They then tried to flee through France to England but their plan did not succeed. Instead, they reached the a region of south of France that was under Italian occupation. However, in September 1943, the Germans invaded Italy and the areas under Italian control and the family found itself under German control. They crossed the Alps into Italy and they found temporary refuge in the huts of shepherds in Valdieri. However, conditions did not permit them to stay there and they went to a nearby village, Andonno and asked the priest for help. Father Antonio Borsotto welcomed them with open arms and put a small apartment next to the church at the disposition of the family.

A short time before their arrival, on September 19, 1943, the German army had committed a massacre in a nearby village, Boves, during which the local priest, Father Giuseppe Bernardi, had been brutally murdered by the officer of the German forces. According to rumors, the priest had been burnt alive inside his church.

Despite the enormous danger, Father Borsotto hid this Jewish family and took care of all their needs. On the eve of Christmas, 1943, during the Christmas mass, Father Borsotto preached a homily in which he spoke of Jesus’ birth. Father Borsotto told that the Holy Family was persecuted by the Romans and therefore Jesus was born in a stable, to which three kings bearing gifts arrived. Father Borsotto continued a said that just as the Holy Family was persecuted then, the Jews were being persecuted now by the Germans. He also revealed to the villagers congregated for the prayer that he was hiding Jews in the village and now they had the occasion to act as the kings had by bringing gifts to the Jewish refugees. That night, the villagers came one by one bringing their gifts.

On April 1, 2014, Yad VaShem recognized Father Borsotto as a Righteous among the Nations.

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