Calogero Marrone

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Calogero Marrone

Calogero Marrone (12 May 1889 – 15 February 1945) was an Italian public servant.

He has been the chief of the Civil Registry office in the municipality of Varese, Lombardy, during the Fascist Era and the Nazi occupation and released hundreds of fake identity cards in order to save Jews and anti-fascists. He was arrested after an anonymous tip-off and died in the Dachau concentration camp. He has been awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations.^[1][2]

Life[]

He was born in Favara, Sicily, he fought as sergeant in the First World War and then he became local secretary of the Veterans Association in his home town. When Benito Mussolini took the power, Marrone refused to sign in the National Fascist Party and he spent a few months in jail. In 1931 he found a job in the town hall of Varese, so he moved to North Italy along with his wife Giuseppina and the four children Filippina, Salvatore, Dina and Domenico.^[3]

Marrone with his family

In Varese he had a quick career and he soon became chief of the Civil Register office, then with 12 employees, and from that position he started with releasing fake documents to Jews and anti-fascists allowing them to escape from the Nazi hunt but an anonymous squealer informed the authorities and he was arrested on 7 January 1944 with the accusations of collaborating with the Resistance, helping the Jews escape, violation of office duties and intelligence with the National Liberation Committee, being each of these charges enough to die by firing squad.^[4]

Calogero Marrone had already been suspended on 1 January and on 4 January he has been warned by don Luigi Locatelli, a priest connected with the Resistance, that the SS were about to arrest him. Despite this Calogero Marrone did not try to escape either because he promised to the Podestà Domenico Castelletti that he would have collaborated in the investigations concerning him and, above all, to protect his family from retaliations. Detained and tortured in many judicial prisons, he revealed nothing. Sent to the Bolzano Transit Camp, he was eventually transferred to Dachau where he died on 15 February 1945, officially by typhus.^[5][6]

Bibliography[]

Franco Giannantoni e Ibio Paolucci, Calogero Marrone, un eroe dimenticato (Calogero Marrone, a forgotten hero), Edizioni Arterigere

References[]