Israeli Righteous among Nations award to two Italian women
(ANSA) – Florence, December 3 – Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial on Tuesday awarded the Righteous Among Nations title to two Florentine women who hid and fed a Jewish family for a year during World War II.
The late Elena Cecchini and her niece Vittoria Valacchi, 98, hid Elio and Clara Salmon and their three children in one of their farmhouses from 1943-1944, saving them from deportation and death in Nazi camps.
The two families were friends before the war, said Paolo Salmon, one of the couple’s three surviving children. The Cecchini family, whose home villa was alternately occupied by German troops and resistance fighters, risked their lives to personally bring food to their Jewish friends in hiding. “We were also saved by the behavior of the local inhabitants, including the prior. They all knew our situation, and they all kept silent”, Salmon added.
The award will be given in a ceremony in the Florence synagogue on Thursday.