Amazon.com Review
In a strange twist of circumstances, the Italian Giorgio Perlasca found himself stranded in Nazi-overrun Budapest near the end of World War II and made his way to the Spanish embassy for safety after the collapse of diplomatic relations between Italy and Germany. Using Spanish connections, Giorgio was rechristened Jorge, and, safe for the time being in the Spanish embassy, went to work for the Spanish ambassador. Part of his work was to visit the Spanish safe houses that harbored Hungarian Jews under threat of deportation. In a story reminiscent of Schindler's List, Perlasca's diary details his heroic efforts to protect these Jews at risk of his life. When diplomatic ties between Spain and Hungary became strained, the Spanish ambassador departed for home, making an offer of escape to his Italian staff member. Perlasca, making the rounds of the safe houses, decided he could not leave the Hungarian Jews unprotected. From that point, Perlasca, "the great impostor," bluffed and blustered his way into recognition as a Spanish diplomat by the Hungarian government, then sparred with German soldiers over one Jewish life after another. In a particularly chilling moment, Perlasca recounts grabbing twin boys in line to be deported at the train station, pushing them into the Spanish embassy car, and then fighting with a German major and a colonel over his right to protect them. The colonel, relenting, turned to Perlasca and said, "You keep them. Their time will come." Moments later the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg informed him that he'd just won an argument with Adolf Eichmann.
Hannah Arendt subtitled her book about Eichmann "A Report on the Banality of Evil," suggesting his crimes were those of an ordinary person. Similarly, The Banality of Goodness reveals the heroism manifest in a seemingly average man. This is a gripping, important addition to the canon of Holocaust literature. --Maria Dolan
From Publishers Weekly
This incredible story confirms an antipode to, or maybe just a variant of, Hannah Arendt's idea of the banality of evil. Perlasca's automatic courage in response to evil is a brand of opportunism that redeems our often overblown claims for humanity. Little in his youth marked him for a hero: after a poor showing in school, he joined Franco's forces, serving in both Spain and Ethiopia. Hoping to avoid further fighting, Perlasca married and got a job with a livestock import company that led him to Budapest. The Italian surrender in 1944 suddenly made Perlasca an enemy of the Germans and he obtained protection from the neutral Spanish embassy. There he joined first secretary, Angel San Briz, working to set up safe houses for Hungarian Jews. After San Briz was recalled from Budapest, Perlasca, fearing for the safe houses, declared himself the new charg? d'affaires, an audacious charade that placed his own life in jeopardy. Perlasca's unlikely background and his modesty no doubt both contributed to his obscurityAhe wasn't "discovered" until 1987, five years before his death in 1992, when those he had helped demanded his recognition. But this same unlikeliness and modesty amplify his inherent challenge to be human, and indict those who did nothing. Perlasca was indeed heroic in extraordinary proportions, choosing risk over safety on a daily basis, and this book is rich with vivid accounts of Budapest, Raoul Wallenberg, Horthy, the papal nuncio and his chilling confrontation with Eichmann. If the writing occasionally veers more to a rather European partisanship, the story itself triumphs.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
