Vatican Pimpernel: The Wartime Exploits of Monsignor Hugh O Flaherty - Tapa blanda

Sinopsis

During the German occupation of Rome from 1942 to 1944, Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, a Kerryman and Vatican diplomat, devoted his energy to running an escape organisation for Allied POWs, civilians and Jews. The work was dangerous. Safe within the Vatican with diplomatic immunity, he regularly ventured out in disguise, building a network of contacts and safe locations. His helpers included religious, communists, a Swiss count, British soldiers and the singer Delia Murphy. When the Allies arrived he had saved over 6,000 and was known as 'the Pimpernel of the Vatican'. Kappler, the Gestapo chief in Rome, ordered him captured or killed if seen outside the Vatican. None of those recaptured and tortured betrayed him. After the war, Kappler was sentenced to life. His only visitor, monthly, for many years, was O'Flaherty. They became friends and, in 1959, O'Flaherty baptised his former enemy. O'Flaherty was awarded the highest honours by many Allied countries, including a CBE (UK), the Congressional Medal (US), and was the first Irishman named Notary of the Holy Office. He retired to Cahirciveen in 1960. Eight million people watched him in 1963 on BBC's This Is Your Life. He died just months later. His death was reported by papers worldwide, including the New York Times. The 'Oskar Schindler' of Ireland was immortalised in a 1983 film starring Gregory Peck as O'Flaherty, The Scarlet and the Black, yet the only monument to him in Ireland is a grove of Italian trees planted in Killarney National Park in 1994 by his family and friends.

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