Description:
In a strange twist of circumstances, the Italian Giorgio Perlasca found himself stranded in Nazi-overrun Budapest near the end of World War II and made his way to the Spanish embassy for safety after the collapse of diplomatic relations between Italy and Germany. Using Spanish connections, Giorgio was rechristened Jorge, and, safe for the time being in the Spanish embassy, went to work for the Spanish ambassador. Part of his work was to visit the Spanish safe houses that harbored Hungarian Jews under threat of deportation. In a story reminiscent of Schindler's List, Perlasca's diary details his heroic efforts to protect these Jews at risk of his life. When diplomatic ties between Spain and Hungary became strained, the Spanish ambassador departed for home, making an offer of escape to his Italian staff member. Perlasca, making the rounds of the safe houses, decided he could not leave the Hungarian Jews unprotected. From that point, Perlasca, "the great impostor," bluffed and blustered his way into recognition as a Spanish diplomat by the Hungarian government, then sparred with German soldiers over one Jewish life after another. In a particularly chilling moment, Perlasca recounts grabbing twin boys in line to be deported at the train station, pushing them into the Spanish embassy car, and then fighting with a German major and a colonel over his right to protect them. The colonel, relenting, turned to Perlasca and said, "You keep them. Their time will come." Moments later the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg informed him that he'd just won an argument with Adolf Eichmann. Hannah Arendt subtitled her book about Eichmann "A Report on the Banality of Evil," suggesting his crimes were those of an ordinary person. Similarly, The Banality of Goodness reveals the heroism manifest in a seemingly average man. This is a gripping, important addition to the canon of Holocaust literature. --Maria Dolan
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