Danny Golding @dannygolding.bsky.social retweetledi
In September 1943, Italy fell under German occupation. The SS hunted Jews for deportation to Auschwitz.
In Assisi, a 32-year-old Franciscan friar named Rufino Niccacci—peasant-born, Guardian of San Damiano Monastery, and someone who had never met a Jew—received an order from Bishop Giuseppe Nicolini.
“We are hiding Jews in every monastery and convent in Assisi.”
“If we’re caught, we’ll be shot,” Rufino replied.
“Yes,” the bishop said. “As many as can come.”
Rufino accepted.
What followed was one of the war’s most daring rescues. Jews fleeing from Rome, Florence, and the north poured into Assisi.
Rufino hid them across 26 monasteries and convents—including the Basilica of Saint Francis and ancient cloistered houses that had never admitted outsiders.
They disguised Jews as monks and nuns. Rufino taught them Latin prayers, how to walk, pray, and sit in chapel. Children memorized Catholic rites they didn’t understand.
A local souvenir shop owner, Luigi Brizi, and his son printed hundreds of flawless fake identity cards, claiming the bearers were from already-liberated southern Italy.
The SS raided repeatedly. They searched monasteries, convents, and homes. They found nothing.
For eight months, an entire town kept the secret. Not a single betrayal. A German colonel, devout Catholic Valentin Müller, was stationed there. He loved Assisi’s churches, attended Mass, and even toured holy sites with Rufino—never knowing (or never acknowledging) the hundreds of hidden Jews around him. He successfully petitioned to make Assisi a protected hospital town, removing combat troops.
Inside the convents, quiet miracles occurred. Jews observed Yom Kippur with the nuns’ blessing; the nuns prepared the breaking-fast meal. Rufino arranged Hebrew lessons for the children, ensuring they could still practice their faith while pretending to be Catholic.
“They were children of God,” he later said. “What else were we supposed to do?”
The network nearly broke in May 1944 when the Bishop’s secretary, Father Aldo Brunacci, was arrested and interrogated. He revealed nothing. Vatican pressure secured his release.
One month later, on June 16, 1944, the Allies liberated Assisi. All 300 hidden Jews walked out alive. Not one had been caught or deported.
They had been sheltered by hundreds of nuns, priests, and townspeople who knew the penalty: priests across Europe were being executed for less.
One informant could have doomed them all. It never happened.
After the war, Rufino returned to quiet Franciscan life. He founded a settlement for poor Christian and Jewish families, served as a parish priest, and avoided fame.
In 1974, Yad Vashem named him Righteous Among the Nations. He planted a tree in Israel and quietly reunited with one of the women he had saved.
He died in 1976 at 65, asking to be cremated in solidarity with Holocaust victims. The Church buried him traditionally. Today, few outside Assisi know his name.
Yet his legacy endures in the thousands of descendants of those 300 saved souls.
An entire town proved it was possible to choose humanity over fear.
No collaborators. No betrayals. No exceptions.
They did not yield.
May all of their memories be a blessing, especially Friar Rufino Nicacci.
English
