ROME – Farewell to Giorgio Sestieri, the face of OSE

Giorgio Sestieri, longtime president of the Italian section of the Organizzazione Ebraica di Assistenza Sanitaria (OSE — the Jewish Health Care Organization), passed away at the age of 81. The organization has a glorious history spanning over a century. It began in Tsarist and then Communist Russia in 1912 and continued in Berlin in 1923, where Albert Einstein served as world president for a period. After Adolf Hitler rose to power, the OSE was renewed in Paris. The first Jewish children to flee Germany and Austria were taken in by the organization in France. During WWII, the organization first acted openly and then clandestinely to save persecuted children. Sestieri, a Roman, was the head of OSE in Italy for many years. He made it a valuable organization, even outside the Jewish world. For the OSE’s centenary in 2012, he promoted a photographic exhibition at the Chamber of Deputies, paying tribute to Raffaele Cantoni, among others. Cantoni founded the Italian OSE while serving as president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities from 1946 to 1951.

One of the people with whom Sestieri has had the most contact in recent years in the Jewish community is Claudio Procaccia, the director of the cultural department of the Roman Jewish Community. OSE is responsible for a private nursery school within the community. “I remember his commitment as a councilor of this community to reopen the historical archive. Culture was not part of his remit, but Giorgio was like that. In addition to his strong focus on social issues, he always worked for the good of the community in every area.” Procaccia continued, “There were many opportunities to collaborate.” The last one was the book Fra trauma e memoria. Le ricerche di Mordko Tenenbaum nella Comunità ebraica di Roma (Between Trauma and Memory: Mordko Tenenbaum’s Research in the Jewish Community of Rome, published by Gangemi in 2024. In it, Sestieri and other experts reflect on Roman Judaism in the postwar period.