BUSTO ARSIZIO – It will be named after the officer Giulio Massarelli the Guardia di Finanza barracks in Busto Arsizio. The ceremony will be held on May 9th in headquarters in via Palestro in the presence of the Interregional Commander of North-Western Italy Fabrizio Carrarini and the Regional Commander Giuseppe Arbore. Naturally there will be no shortage of the provincial commander, brigadier general Crescenzo Sciaraffa, and the commander of the Busto Group, Daniele Marra. At the end of the institutional interventions, the flag raising, the blessing of the commemorative plaque and the reading of the “Financier’s Prayer” will follow.
Who is Giulio Massarelli
Giulio Massarelli, died in Terni on 26 April 1977, obtained the Righteous Among the Nations medal «For having personally contributed, in multiple circumstances, during the period of Nazi occupation of Northern Italyto the rescue of numerous Jews, accompanying them to the border with Switzerland and, putting his own life in grave danger, helping them to expatriate until the Liberation of Italy».
The survivors
Without his “help and even at his great risk (in accompanying me) I would have been sent to Germany where I would have ended up like the 6 million Jews my co-religionists.” These are the words of thanks written in his own hand by a Jew who he escaped the Nazi concentration camps thanks to Giulio Massarelli. According to historical research carried out by the captain Gerardo Severinoat the time of the events he was serving at Busto Arsizio Tax Police Unit having also joined, at the same time, the Cln as shown in the statement issued by “Alfredo Di Dio” Divisional Grouping Command, of the Freedom Volunteer Corps. From this statement it appears that Massarelli, after the Armistice, provided notable services to the cause of the Resistanceaccompanying numerous Jews and anti-fascist personalities were expatriated until 25 April 1945, date in which he participated in the insurrection in the upper Milan area. Among the survivors who owe him their lives there is also Braun Baronicu, born in 1885, a stateless Jew originally from the city of Turenar in Transylvania, included among the Jews listed in the documents of the Republican Police Headquarters of Varesethe precise list of which was sent to German border guard Captain Knop on 25 October 1943. Baronicu, in this regard, signed a touching declaration. «The financier Massarelli Giulio – he said – saved my life in December 1943, procuring and preparing my escape to Switzerlandaccompanying me from Busto hospital where I was hospitalized until Sondriowhere he handed me over to some of his acquaintances who took me in a pannier for over eight hours in the mountains until I arrived on Swiss territory and handed over to the Swiss authorities.”
