He is celebrated throughout Italy – streets, squares and schools are named after him. In 2007, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, the Italian postal system issued a commemorative stamp. His Catholic supporters say miracles have been attributed to him.
But, newly released research by, among others, Trieste historian and educator Marco Coslovich has led to second thoughts.
Coslovich has carefully studied the wartime police archives in Fiume, where there were only some 500 Jews at the start of the war.
"There is no concrete evidence whatsoever that Palatucci saved 5,000 Jews as many believe," says Coslovich. "Those are crazy numbers that do not correspond to the historical record; they're unfounded, not believable."
Coslovich has dedicated his entire adult life to studying the turbulent events that took place during World War II in the border region between Italy and Yugoslavia, where there was an intense partisan resistance and many Nazi and Fascist atrocities.
He has written extensively about deportations, Nazi death camps and Fascist persecution of Jews.
And he says the Fiume documents he has studied actually tarnish Palatucci's reputation.
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