Ginetta Sagan

Ginetta Sagan (June 1, 1925 – August 25, 2000) was an Italian-born American human rights activist. She is best known for her work with Amnesty International for prisoners of conscience.

Sagan was born in Milan, Italy. When she was a teenager, her parents died in the Black Brigades of Benito Mussolini. Like her parents, she was active in the Italian resistance movement. She gathered intelligence and supplied Jews during World War II. She was captured and tortured in 1945. Sagan escaped on the night before she was to be executed.

After studying in Paris, she attended graduate school in child development in the United States. She married Leonard Sagan, a physician, in 1951 . The couple moved to Atherton, California. In Atherton, Sagan founded the first chapter of Amnesty International in the western United States. She later helped to create more than 75 chapters of the organization. She also organized events to raise money for political prisoners.

In 1984, Sagan was elected the honorary chair of Amnesty International USA. US President Bill Clinton gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. Italy later awarded her the rank of Grand Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana (Grand Official Order of Merit of the Italian Republic). Amnesty International created a yearly Ginetta Sagan Award for activists in her honor.

Category:1925 births
Category:2000 deaths
Category:People from California
Category:American human rights activists
Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients