Giuseppe MarconeGiuseppe Ramiro Marcone, OSB (1882, San Pietro Infine, Italy – 1952, Montevergine) was an Italian Benedictine abbot. He was ordained in 1906 and appointed Abbot of Montevergine in 1918.[1] He served an apostolic visitor to Croatia during World War II, in which capacity he worked on behalf of the Holy See for the protection of Croatian Jews.[citation needed] In 1941, Pope Pius XII dispatched Marcone as apostolic visitor to Nazi-aligned Croatia, in order to assist Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac and the Croatian Episcopate in "combating the evil influence of neo-pagan propaganda which could be exercised in the organization of the new state".[2] Marcone served as nuncio in all but name.[3] He reported to Rome on the deteriorating conditions for Croatian Jews, made representations on behalf of the Jews to Croatian officials, and transported Jewish children to safety in neutral Turkey. [2] However, he made no efforts on behalf of Serb victims of the Ustaše. When deportation of Croatian Jews began, Stepinac and Marcone protested to Andrija Artuković.[3] In his study of rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, Martin Gilbert wrote, "In the Croatian capital of Zagreb, as a result of intervention by [Marcone] on behalf of Jewish partners in mixed marriages, a thousand Croat Jews survived the war.[4] Marcone died in 1952. See also
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