Lucy Salani

Lucy Salani (12 August 1924 – 21 March 2023) was an Italian activist and the only known Italian survived person to the Nazi concentration camps to be transgender. Born in Fossano and raised in Bologna, Salani was understood to be a gay man before undergoing gender-affirming surgery later in her life. An anti-fascist, Salani deserted both the fascist Italian and the Nazi German armies during World War II before being caught and deported to Dachau concentration camp in 1944, where she remained until the liberation of the camp by the United States Armed Forces in April 1945.

Following her liberation and the end of the war, Salani lived in Rome, Turin and Paris before completing her transition in London. She then returned to Bologna in the 1980s, eventually spending the rest of her life in the city. Her life story gained public attention during the 2010s, as writer and director dedicated a biography and a documentary to her.

Biography Early life Lucy Salani was born as Luciano Salani in Fossano, Piedmont, in 1924. She then moved to Bologna with her family, who had Emilian origins and raised her with anti-fascist values. However, Salani was rejected by her father and brothers because of her homosexuality, and had to keep her relationships with men hidden in order to avoid persecution from the fascist regime. Despite being repeatedly tortured by Nazi officers in the camp, she survived for six months, until the camp was eventually liberated by American troops in April 1945; at the time, she was 20 years old. However, she chose not to change her legal name,

Late life and public recognition Salani returned to Bologna during the 1980s, in order to take care of her parents, and eventually spent the rest of her life in the city. She was active as an anti-fascist, and as an advocate for LGBT rights. In January 2018, she was invited to take part in a demonstration organized by LGBT rights associations Arcigay and for the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On that occasion, she said: "It is impossible to forget and forgive. Some nights, I still dream of the most horrendous things I saw, and I feel like I'm still [trapped] there, and so, I want people to know what happened in the concentration camps, so that it won't happen again." reported that Salani was living in poverty and rejected by many local hospices. The documentary, whose title was taken from the final verse of a poem written by Salani herself, described her everyday life in Bologna and her return to Dachau, where she had been invited for the 75th anniversary of the concentration camp's liberation.

In summer 2022, she was honored by the city council of Bologna for her activism.

Salani died late evening of 21 March 2023, aged 98.

In october 2025 a book on her life and with some of her documents was published, Quasi un secolo. Vita di Lucy Salani, edited by Simone Cangelosi e Fulvia Antonelli with lots of tributes from friends and activists.