SEARCH RESULTS

Fatebenefratelli hospital in Rome, Italy, in 2019. Sacred healing place. Source: ReidsItaly. The entire world is being currently swept by a great crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has seen millions of cases of death, a major economic recession, and a general state of alarm and panic between governments and civilians. All of these things aren’’t new, but in occassions, the genius of the human mind manages to fool its fellow men into thinking that certain deadly conditions actually “exist”. This was the case with a completely fictional disease which, 77 years ago, was introduced as a severe case between a lot of people, but that, instead of decimating, actually helped save thousands of lives. From Mussolini to Hitler In the year 1943, Europe, Asia and Africa were being swept by another crisis, World War II. Mussolini’s dictatorship had just failed in Italy, and the Nazis began their occupation of the Jewish zone of the country. Following the same modus operandi as in other occupied nations, the Nazis began the systematic persecution and decimation of Italian Jews. They tortured them, assassinated them, or deported them to the concentration camps such as Auschwitz. Things were the same as, or even worse than, when Mussolini was in power. But a stronghold of hope and protection soon made itself present, in the capital of Rome. In Tiber Island, 400 feet away from Rome’s Jewish getto, stands the Fatebenefratelli hospital. Founded almost 500 years ago by a Portuguese Catholic missionary, in the ruins of a temple dedicated to the Greek god of medicine, the hospital had provided shelter during past crises, such as the plague outbreaks of 1656 and 1657, and the Roman occupation of 1870. Now, the hospital found itself providing shelter to the remaining Jews in the city. It wasn’t easy at first, but two men came up with a genius plan to make it work. The masterminds The hospital’s head physician at the time was Giovanni Borromeo. He was an avowed anti-fascist and the son of a famous physician. He graduated from the University of Rome and earned a bronze medal during World War I. He was appointed director of Fatebenefratelli in 1934, and during the outbreak of World War II he became lead physician. Another prominent member of the hospital was young Jewish doctor Vittorio Emanuele Sacerdoti. Witnessing the persecution and decimation the Nazis were carrying out in the zone, Borromeo and Sacerdoti began admitting them in isolated ward, fooling the German officials with fake medical records. The case files confirmed the existence of a mysterious yet fatal virus known as “syndrome K”. The virus was named after Herbert Kappler, the German police chief in Rome who ordered the attacks. Under the pretense of being infected with this potentially deadly disease, Fatebenefratelli continued accepting thousands of Jews and anti-fascists into its premises during the next nine months, until the Allies entered and liberated Italy. Another colleague of Borromeo, Adriano Oscinni, continuously wrote to Borromeo asking for the exact number of beds that had to be reserved for K patients. The Nazis tried multiple times to register Fatebenefratelli in search of the refugees. However, once Borromeo described, and outright showed them, the deadly effects of K, they were appalled enough to stay as far from the hospital as they could. It seems that K was synonymous with tuberculosis or cancer, diseases of which the Germans at the time were very afraid off. The aftermath The plan worked effectively in saving thousands of innocent lives. On May 2, 1945, the last German officials at Italy surrended after a long, grueling campaign. Germany officially surrended the following week, and the war in Europe was over. Italy became a democratic republic, and all the thousands of people who were at the mercy of fascism were now celebrating in the streets, very well healthy and alive. Borromeo became a local hero, and his bravery, genius, and sense of charity have been rewarded many times throughout the last 80 years. After the end of World War II, he was awarded a medal of honor and 43 years after his death, Yad Vashem recognized him as one of the Righteous among the Nations, as one of the gentiles who risked their lives protecting the remaining Jews. A retired Vittorio Sacerdoti was interviewed by the BBC in 2004, on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Rome. In said interview he revealed that one of the many people saved by K was his 10-year old cousin Luciana. Adriano Oscinni went on to become Minister of Health during the 1990s. In 2016 Fatebenefratelli was acknowledged by an organization which seeks and rewards fighters against the horrors of the Holocaust. The plaque reads, “This place was a beacon of light in the darkness of the Holocaust. It is our moral duty to remember these great heroes for new generations to recognize and appreciate them.” As for the Nazis? They never became aware that syndrome K never existed. Still, this whole story remains an instance where misinformation, fear, and ignorance functioned as an agent for good. Sources Buscemi, Francesco, “K Syndrome, the Disease that Saved,” History Today, March 3rd, 2019, https://www.historytoday.com/history-matters/k-syndrome-disease-, saved#:~:text=K%20Syndrome%20was%20an%20invented,was%20an%20avowed%20anti%2Dfascist., accessed September 16th, 2020. Colina, Jesús, “The incredible story of the false ‘K disease’ who saved Jews from the Nazis,” The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, June 22nd, 2016, https://www.raoulwallenberg.net/news/the-incredible-story-of-the-false-k-disease-who-saved-jews-from-the-nazis/, accessed September 16th, 2020. “Fatebenefratelli Hospital,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatebenefratelli_Hospital, accessed September 16th, 2020. “Hospitals in Rome,” ReidsItaly, http://www.reidsitaly.com/places/rome/plan/concerns-safety/hospitals-in-rome/, accessed September 16th, 2020. Hu, Caitlin, “An Italian doctor explains ‘syndrome K,” the fake disease he invented to save Jews from the Nazis,” Quartz, July 8th, 2016, https://qz.com/724169/an-italian-doctor-explains-syndrome-k-the-fake-disease-he-invented-to-save-jews-from-the-nazis/, accessed September 16th, 2020. “Italian doctor who fooled Nazis,” BBC News, December 3rd, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4066105.stm, accessed September 16th, 2020. Momigliano, Anna, “Roman Hospital Awarded for Inventing an ‘Infectious Disease’ to Save Jews During WWII,” Haaretz, June 23rd, 2016, https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium-rome-hospital-saved-jews-1.5400158, accessed September 16th, 2020. “The Holocaust: Roman Hospital Saves Jews by Inventing Disease,” Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/roman-hospital-saves-jews-by-inventing-disease, accessed September 16th, 2020.

In February 1964, journalists and critics gathered at an avant-garde exposition at Gallerie Christinae in Göteborg, Sweden. There were works by artists from England, Denmark, Italy, Germany, Austria, and Sweden, but the most discussed works that night were a series of four paintings by an enigmatic, recently unknown French artist, Pierre Brassau. Reaction to the works was, on its great part, positive. Rolf Andenberg of the Göteborgs-Posten praised Brassau’s powerful, yet determined and graceful strokes, comparing his work to the grace and delicacy of a ballet dancer. Only one critic that night trashed Brassau’s work, commenting that “only an ape could’ve done this”. But perhaps, this critic never expected to be right: This was, indeed, the work of an ape. “Pierre Brassau” was actually Peter, a 4-year old chimp from the Boras Djurpark Zoo. It was all an elaborate hoax perpetuated by Âke Axelsson, of the Göteborgs-Tidningen daily paper, who convinced Peter’s teenage keeper to give him a brush and some paint, and then had the chimp create several paintings. After evaluating them, he chose the best four and arranged to have them exposed at the Gallerie Christinae. The purpose of Axelsson’s experiment was to exhibit the art of a non-human primate artist, under the guise of an unknown human artist, to test whether critics could truly differentiate between true modern avant-garde art, and the work of an ape. After Pierre Brassau was exposed to the world as a hoax shortly after, Rolf Andenberg (the critic who praised the paintings) sustained that Peter’s work was still the best contribution to the exhibition. In 1969, Peter was transferred to Chester Zoo at England, where he lived for the remainder of his life. Still, Axelsson’s experiment was a proof that not even the sharpest critics could differentiate between modern art and monkey art. Source Pierre Brassau, Monkey Artist (1964), Museum of Hoaxes, http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/pierre_brassau_monkey_artist, accessed November 10th, 2019.