Ginetta sagan biography of christopher

Italian human rights activist

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.

Ginetta sagan biography of christopher

After studying in Paris, she attended graduate school in child development in the US and married Leonard Sagan, a physician. 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