Ginetta Sagan facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ginetta Sagan
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| Born |
Ginetta Moroni
June 25, 1925 Milan, Italy
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| Died | August 25, 2000 (aged 75) Atherton, California, United States
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| Organization | Italian resistance movement, Amnesty International, Aurora Foundation |
| Spouse(s) | Leonard Sagan (m. 1951–97) |
| Children | 3 |
| Awards | Presidential Medal of Freedom, Grand Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana |
Ginetta Sagan (born June 1, 1925 – died August 25, 2000) was an American activist who was born in Italy. She is famous for her work with Amnesty International. She helped people called "prisoners of conscience", who are people put in jail for their beliefs, race, or religion, but who have not used or supported violence.
When she was a teenager, Ginetta lost her parents because of a group called the Black Brigades, who supported Benito Mussolini in Italy. Like her parents, she was part of the Italian resistance movement. This group worked against Mussolini's government. Ginetta helped by gathering information and giving supplies to Jewish people who were hiding. In 1945, she was captured and treated badly, but she managed to escape just before she was supposed to be executed. Some German officers, who were secretly against the Nazis, helped her.
After the war, Ginetta studied in Paris and then in the US. She got married to Leonard Sagan, a doctor. They moved to Atherton, California. There, Ginetta started the first local group of Amnesty International in the western United States. She traveled around, helping to create more than 75 local groups. She also organized events to raise money for political prisoners.
In 1984, Ginetta Sagan became an honorary leader of Amnesty International USA. In 1996, the US President Bill Clinton gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is a very high award for civilians in the US. Italy also gave her a high honor called Grand Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana. Amnesty International later created an award in her name for other activists.
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Early Life and World War II
Ginetta Sagan was born in Milan, Italy. Her father was Catholic, and her mother was Jewish. Both of her parents were doctors. Because of growing antisemitism (hatred of Jewish people) in Europe, her parents got false papers for her. These papers said she was Christian to hide her Jewish background.
When World War II started, both of Ginetta's parents joined the Italian resistance movement. They were fighting against the fascist government. In 1943, Mussolini's Black Brigades arrested them. Ginetta's father was later killed, and her mother was sent to Auschwitz, where she also died.
Ginetta was seventeen years old and already helping the resistance. She delivered food coupons and clothes to Jewish people who were hiding. After her parents disappeared, she became a messenger for the resistance in Northern Italy. She also helped print and give out papers that were against the government. Once, she dressed as a cleaning lady to steal official paper from government offices. This paper was used to make fake letters that helped people escape to Switzerland. Because she was very energetic and small (she was never taller than five feet), people called her Topolino, which means "Little Mouse."
In early 1945, someone told the Black Brigades about Ginetta. She was arrested, just like her parents. While she was in jail, a guard secretly gave her a piece of bread with a matchbox inside. On the matchbox, the word coraggio ("courage") was written. This small act of kindness gave her hope and inspired her later work. On the day she was supposed to be executed, she was being beaten by guards. Then, two German officers arrived and made the Italian guards release her. They took her in their car. Ginetta thought she would never see another sunrise. But the Germans were actually Nazi defectors who were helping the resistance. They took Ginetta safely to a Catholic hospital. For the rest of her life, Ginetta celebrated April 23 as the day she was saved.
Life After the War
After Ginetta got better, she lived in Paris for a while with her godfather. She studied at the Sorbonne. In 1951, she moved to the US to study child development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There, she met Leonard Sagan, who was a medical student. They got married the next year and stayed together until Leonard died in 1997. After they married, they moved to Washington, D.C. for Leonard's job. Ginetta also taught cooking classes part-time.
Later, the couple lived in Boston and Japan before settling in Atherton, California, in 1968. Ginetta lived there until she died from cancer on August 25, 2000. She had three sons: Duncan, Loring, and Stuart.
Working with Amnesty International
Amnesty International (AI) was well-known in the UK, but in 1968, it was not very famous in the US. Only eighteen local groups of AI USA had been started, all in the eastern US, with fewer than a thousand members. Ginetta had been involved with the organization in Washington, D.C. When she moved to Atherton, she started the 19th US group right in her living room. This group later became the first regional office for AI USA on the West Coast.
In 1971, Ginetta organized a concert with the singer Joan Baez, who was her neighbor in Atherton. The concert raised money for Greek political prisoners and attracted more than 10,000 people. Joan Baez later wrote that Ginetta had "an active mind, a love of life and beauty, an unquashable spirit, and a faith in people." Over the next three years, Ginetta traveled across the western US, starting 75 more AI groups. By 1978, AI USA had grown to 70,000 members, which was more than 100 times its size a decade earlier. An AI spokesperson later said that Ginetta did more than anyone to establish Amnesty International in the US. They added that she probably organized more people than anyone else in the human rights movement worldwide. She also started the organization's first newsletter, Matchbox, in 1973.
Ginetta also founded the Aurora Foundation. This organization looks into and shares information about human rights abuses.
Awards and Honors
In 1987, Ginetta Sagan received a Jefferson Award for Public Service. This award recognized her great public service to people who were struggling.
In 1996, US President Bill Clinton gave Ginetta Sagan the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is the highest award a civilian can receive in the US. President Clinton said that Ginetta Sagan's name meant "the fight for human rights around the world." He added that she showed "the triumph of the human spirit over tyranny." In the same year, Italy gave her its highest honor, the Grand Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana.
Ginetta Sagan Fund
Amnesty International created the Ginetta Sagan Fund in 1994 to honor Ginetta. This fund gives a $20,000 award each year to a woman or women. The award is for those who are working to protect the freedom and lives of women and children in places where human rights are often violated.
Some past winners of the award include:
- 2019: Victoria Nyanjura, Uganda; Malika Abubakarova, Russia
- 2018: Dorothy Njemanze, Nigeria
- 2017: Charon Asetoyer, Comanche Nation
- 2016: Julienne Lusenge, Democratic Republic of Congo
- 2015: Amal Khalifa Habbani, Sudan
- 2014: Magda Alli and Suzan Fayad, Egypt
- 2012: Jenni Williams, Zimbabwe
- 2010: Rebecca Masika Katsuva, Democratic Republic of Congo
- 2009: Yolanda Becerra Vega, Colombia
- 2008: Betty Makoni, Zimbabwe
- 2007: Lydia Cacho Ribeiro, Mexico
- 2006: Ljiljana Raičević, Serbia and Montenegro
- 2005: Hawa Aden Mohamed, Somalia
- 2004: Nebahat Akkoc, Turkey
- 2003: Sonia Pierre, Dominican Republic
- 2002: Jeannine Mukanirwa, Democratic Republic of Congo
- 2000: Helen Akongo, Uganda; Giulia Tamayo Leon, Peru; Hina Jilani, Pakistan
- 1999: Sima Wali, Afghanistan
- 1999: Adriana Portillo-Bartow, El Salvador
- 1998: Beatrice Mukansinga, Rwanda
- 1997: Mangala Sharma, Bhutan
