Antonio Dressino was a Catholic priest in the San Gioacchino parish in Rome. German troops occupied the city on September 8, 1943. Several Italian soldiers, resistance fighters and endangered Jews sought protection in the community. Together with other priests, Antonio Dressino hid a number of men in an empty space underneath the church’s dome. They included the Jewish boy Leopoldo Moscati and his father Alberto.
In early November they were warned that the Germans planned to search the church. The group formed around Antonio Dressino decided along with the endangered people to brick up the entrance to their hiding place. Food was passed to the walled-in men at night via a high window. This was also how people were brought in and out of the hiding place. As well as the Moscatis, the two Jews Gilberto and Arrigo Finzi also hid there from January 1944.
At the end of May 1944, Dressino feared the hiding place had been betrayed. The wall was demolished and the endangered men hid elsewhere until Rome was liberated on June 4, 1944.
Antonio Dressino was honored for his help by the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations in 1995.
Church of San Gioacchino, Rome, Piazza dei Quiriti, around 1930. Source: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
Members of the San Gioacchino lay organization Catholic Action, including Pietro Lestini (2nd from right) and Father Dressino (seated, front), Rome, 1943. Source: Parocchia di San Gioacchino in Prati, Rom
Gables of the Church of San Gioacchino with the round window onto the former hiding place, Rome, 2018. Source: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand, Foto: Sara Berger
