Blessed Giuseppe Girotti, Dominican Martyr of Dachau

Who was Blessed Giuseppe Girotti?

Blessed Giuseppe Girotti was a Dominican friar and Bible scholar from Piedmont who risked everything to hide Jewish families in wartime Turin, and died for it in the Dachau concentration camp on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945. The Church beatified him as a martyr in 2014, and the State of Israel honors him as Righteous Among the Nations. We keep his feast on April 1.

A Frenchman who knew him in the camp, Edmond Michelet, remembered him as "a young Dominican with an angelic face, whose great black eyes called on Jesus-Viaticum for eternal life."

The life of Blessed Giuseppe Girotti

A scholar of the Scriptures

Giuseppe was born on July 19, 1905, in Alba, to a poor and devout family. At thirteen he entered the Dominican house at Chieri near Turin. He made his profession in 1923 and was ordained a priest on August 3, 1930. He studied at the Angelicum in Rome and then at the École Biblique in Jerusalem until 1934, and became a professor of Sacred Scripture, writing commentaries on books of the Old Testament. He taught at the Dominican seminary in Turin and at the missionary college of the Consolata, founded by St. Giuseppe Allamano.

He was not an easy fit for every superior. Some of his brothers thought him too free with the strict discipline of the day and a little careless about his habit. In 1939 he was removed from teaching and moved to the convent of San Domenico in Turin. There he gave himself to the poor, visiting the old men's hospice and serving wherever there was need.

Shelter for the persecuted

After the armistice of September 8, 1943, Germany occupied northern Italy and the hunt for Jews began in earnest. Fr. Girotti became the organizer of a wide network of help. Thanks to him, the decree on his martyrdom says, many Jews found safe hiding places, false identity papers, and sometimes a way out of the country.

The trap

His work was noticed. In August 1944 a mysterious phone call brought a car to the convent with a man who claimed to be a badly wounded partisan in need of a doctor who would not report him. Fr. Girotti took him to the villa where the Jewish doctor Giuseppe Diena was hiding. Fascist agents had followed the car. Dr. Diena was arrested and sent to Flossenbürg, where he was killed on March 2, 1945. Fr. Girotti was arrested on August 29, 1944.

The martyrdom of Giuseppe Girotti

He was held in Turin's Le Nuove prison, then at San Vittore in Milan, then in the Bolzano camp from September 21, 1944, and finally, from October 9, at Dachau. He was put to work on the camp's plantation, dragging harrows and ploughs for nearly twelve hours a day, often in rain and snow, and digging frozen roots out of the ground with his bare hands. Even there he kept studying the Scriptures and planning new books.

The witnesses agree on how he lived. "He helped others in every way he could," a fellow priest said. "He drew courage from hope in a merciful God and tried to give courage to others." Reduced to a living skeleton, he was seen with his rosary in his hand, still consoling and absolving those who came near him.

His legs swelled and his health collapsed. In March 1945 he was taken to the camp infirmary. On April 1, 1945, Easter Sunday, the prisoners learned that he had died. Many believed he had been killed by a lethal injection. The cause of death could never be proved, and the Church concluded that he died as a result of the violence he suffered. His companions wrote on his bunk that here slept "St. Giuseppe Girotti." Four weeks later, on April 29, American troops liberated the camp.

His body was thrown into a common grave on the Leitenberg hill, about three kilometers from the camp, where a small plaque now honors him.

Righteous Among the Nations and beatification

The Jewish community of Italy honored him in 1955 and 1988. On February 14, 1995, the State of Israel awarded him the medal of the Righteous Among the Nations, and a tree was planted for him in the Avenue of the Righteous in Jerusalem.

The diocesan inquiry was held in Turin from 1988 to 1990. Pope Francis approved the decree on his martyrdom on March 27, 2013, and he was beatified on April 26, 2014.

• Approved: as a martyr he was beatified without a miracle. No miracle has yet been approved for his canonization.

Symbols of Blessed Giuseppe Girotti in art

He is shown in the white Dominican habit, sometimes with the black cape, holding a Bible for his life as a Scripture scholar and a rosary for his prayer in the camp. Images of his martyrdom show him in the striped uniform of a Dachau prisoner, still with the rosary. The martyr's palm marks his death for charity.

Feast day and prayer

We keep his feast on April 1, the day he died on Easter Sunday 1945. See the feast day calendar.

We know of no traditional prayer to him that we can quote. Let us pray with the psalm the Church chose to sum up his life in the decree of his martyrdom: "Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light for my path" (Psalm 119:105, NABRE). And let us ask him to pray for all who hide and protect the persecuted, for students of Scripture, and for peace between Christians and Jews. Blessed Giuseppe Girotti, pray for us.