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Ginetta Sagan (June 1, 1925 – August 25, 2000) was an Italian-born American human rights activist best known for her work with Amnesty International on behalf of prisoners of conscience. Born in Milan, Italy, Sagan lost her parents in her teenage years to the Black Brigades of Benito Mussolini. Like her parents, she was active in the Italian resistance movement, gathering intelligence and supplying Jews in hiding. She was captured and tortured in 1945, but escaped on the eve of her execution with the help of Nazi defectors. After studying in Paris, she attended graduate school in child development in the US and married Leonard Sagan, a physician. They were living in Rockville Maryland when they arranged to have a foster child through Jewish Social Services. The social worker, Patrick Coy, oversaw the arrangements. Jan Rose Kasmir, the 17 year old girl captured in Marc Riboud's iconic anti-war photograph, was that teenager. Jan Rose was living with the Sagan's that day when she took a bus to attend to the demonstration in Washington DC against the war in Vietnam and was photographed in front of the Pentagon holding up a flower while the soldiers pointed their guns at her. Madam Sagan and Dr. Sagan were entertaining guests from out of town. They took them to the White House Photography Exhibit at the Library of Congress.. While there they saw another photograph of janrose that was taken by aNational Geographic photographer. They were completely stunned to see this photograph, which had won honorable mention, prominently feature their foster child. They had no knowledge that she had attended the demonstration. Madame Sagan presented a copy of the photograph to janrose on her 18th birthday. The couple then resettled in Atherton, California, where Sagan founded the first chapter of Amnesty International in the western US. She later toured the region, helping to establish more than 75 chapters, and organized events to raise money for political prisoners. In 1984, Sagan was elected the honorary chair of Amnesty International USA. US President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996, and Italy later awarded her the rank of ''Grand Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana'' (Grand Official Order of Merit of the Italian Republic). Amnesty International founded an annual Ginetta Sagan Award for activists in her honor. ==Childhood and World War II== Ginetta Sagan was born Ginetta Moroni in Milan, Italy, to a Catholic father and a Jewish mother. Both of her parents were doctors.〔 Facing rising antisemitism in Europe, her parents arranged false papers identifying her as Christian to hide her Jewish roots.〔 When World War II began, both of her parents became active in the Italian resistance movement opposing fascist rule, only to be arrested in 1943 by Mussolini's Black Brigades. Her father was later shot in a staged "attempted escape", and her mother sent to Auschwitz, where she died.〔 Ginetta, then seventeen years old, was already active in the resistance movement, delivering food coupons and clothing to Jews who were in hiding.〔 Following her parents' disappearance, she became a courier for resistance forces in Northern Italy, as well as helping to print and distribute antigovernment pamphlets. On one occasion, she dressed as a cleaning lady to steal letterhead from government offices so that it could be used to forge letters of safe passage to Switzerland. Due to her energy and small size (she never grew to more than five feet tall),〔 she received the nickname ''Topolino'' ("Little Mouse"). In late February 1945, Sagan was betrayed by an informer in the movement and, like her parents, arrested by the Black Brigades.〔 During her 45 days of imprisonment, she was beaten, raped, and tortured, leading up to a scheduled April 23 execution. At one point, a jailer tossed her a loaf of bread that contained a matchbox with the word ''corragio'' ("courage") written inside, a moment which would motivate much of her later work on behalf of prisoners.〔 On the day of her scheduled execution, she was being beaten by guards in a villa in Sondrio, Italy, when a pair of German officers forced her Italian captors to release her into their custody. She later recalled watching the stars from the window of their car and thinking, "I will never see another dawn." However, the Germans revealed themselves to be Nazi defectors collaborating with her resistance comrades, and they delivered Sagan safely to a Catholic hospital.〔 Sagan annually celebrated the date of April 23 for the rest of her life.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ginetta Sagan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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