The Fake Illness That Saved Lives
Syndrome K wasn't real. But it helped prevent systemic murder.
Dan Lewis
January 22, 2025
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Hi! On Wednesdays, I typically share a re-run from my archives — it helps me manage the workload of the newsletter, my day job, and the rest of my life. I usually try to pick something around an anniversary of the event in question or something like that. I can’t always find a good fit and choose random ones often, but today’s I selected for a reason. This coming Monday, January 27th, is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I don’t have a lot of Holocaust stories in my archive — it’s very hard to write about on many levels, and it’s especially hard to do so while maintaining a light, curiosity-first mindset about the world.
Today’s story is as close as it gets, I think. I hope you find it both interesting and meaningful. — Dan
The Fake Illness That Saved Lives
In July of 1943, Italy's role in World War II pivoted dramatically. Allied forces landed in Sicily, successfully invading the then-Axis power. Before the month was out, Italy's fascist prime minister, Benito Mussolini, was no longer in charge and, instead, was under lock and key. His own Grand Council of Fascism censured him with a vote of no confidence; in response, Italy's King Victor Emmanuel III removed him from office and had him arrested.
The king and the new government began armistice talks with the Allies shortly thereafter, but that took time, and in the interim, the king and new leadership fled to the south, hoping to avoid the Germans. This gave Germany the chance to occupy Rome, which they held until the middle of 1944.
All told, the German occupation of Rome lasted for only about nine months. But for the city's Jewish population, that was a dangerous, and typically deadly, time. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, of the 12,000 Jews living in Rome in September of 1943, nearly 2,000 were deported to and murdered at Auschwitz.
But for the heroics of some fast-thinking doctors, that number could have been higher.
The 10,000 or so Jews who survived the nine-month ordeal did so by fleeing into the Vatican, which was neutral during the War, or to other Catholic outposts in the area. Some ended up at Fatebenefratelli Hospital on Rome's Tiber Island, an institution run by the Church since its founding in the mid-1500s. Reports vary, but between two dozen and one hundred Jews took refuge within its walls. But the Nazis didn't respect that boundary. In October, the Germans entered the hospital, demanding that the doctors turn over the Jews, mostly children, in their care.
Three of the doctors -- Adriano Ossicini, Vittorio Sacerdoti, Giovanni Borromeo -- came up with a plan: write on the refugees' charts that they were afflicted with a condition called Syndrome K -- a disease which, to the layperson, appeared to be highly contagious, and best avoided. But in reality, it was entirely innocuous -- it was fake. As Quartz explains, "the disease did not exist in any medical textbook or physician’s chart. In fact, it didn’t exist at all." Quartz continues:
The fake illness was vividly imagined: Rooms holding “Syndrome K” sufferers were designated as dangerously infectious—dissuading Nazi inspectors from entering—and Jewish children were instructed to cough, in imitation of tuberculosis, when soldiers passed through the hospital.
The idea was that the Nazis entering the hospital would let the Jewish children be; even though the German soldiers were under orders to seize and deport them, self-preservation, the doctors hoped, would trump such cruelty.
And, as Dr. Sacerdoti would explain to the BBC decades later, the plan worked: "the Nazis thought it [Syndrome K] was cancer or tuberculosis, and they
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Today’s Bonus fact: There is no letter K in the Italian alphabet, at least not usually. K and four other letters in the English alphabet — J, W, X, and Y — are typically only used in loanwords, or when foreign-language words have become part of the Italian parlance (e.g. "kilo"). (Syndrome K was named for Albert Kesselring, the German commander who ruled Rome during the occupation.)
From the Archives: The Epidemic That Saved Lives: A similar story to the one about Syndrome K.
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And thanks! — Dan