ROME: FROM FASCISM TO LIBERATION

K-SYNDROME

 

Nestled on a tiny island on the Tiber river sits a grand hospital that dates back to 1582. Called the Fatebenefratelli, this hospital carries the legacy of a certain Dr. Vittorio Sacerdoti, who brazenly saved the lives of at least 45 Jews during the Nazi occupation of Rome in World War II. A Jew himself, Sacerdoti had been dismissed as a doctor from his former position because of the Nazi occupation. The Fatebenefratelli hospital took him on because, as a Vatican-run hospital, it was exempt from any racial laws.

            As the roundup of Jews began in Rome, Sacerdoti began to hide family, friends and any Jews that could make it to him in plain view in a quarantine room. He and the hospital staff—consisting mostly of nuns—placed signs around the hospital warning of K-Syndrome, a deadly disease requiring immediate quarantine.

             "We called it K after the German commander Kesselring - the Nazis thought it was cancer or tuberculosis, and they fled like rabbits,” said Sacerdoti in an interview with the BBC.

The disease, of course, was completely invented. But when Nazis came around to demand the list of patients in the hospital, they became deadly afraid of the possibility of K-Syndrome, something they had never heard of but hardly had much time to explore in the midst of war. When a Nazi demanded to be shown the quarantined patients, the hidden Jews were told to start coughing uncontrollably, which they must have done admirably because the Nazis never molested them again.  

            The hospital is strategically located on Isola Tiberina: just north of it lies the Jewish ghetto, and just northwest lies the Vatican. It is still a fully operational hospital today.   

 

Deutsch, Aryeh, and Rachel Ginsberg. Saved by the K Syndrome. Pp. 54-60. Mishpacha: Jewish Family Weekly, 18 May 2011.

 

"Italian Doctor Who Fooled Nazis." BBC News. BBC, 12 Mar. 2004. Web.