Lucy Salani

Lucy Salani
Lucy Salani, photographed c. 2023
Born	Luciano Salani (1924-08-12)12 August 1924 Fossano, Italy
Died	22 March 2023(2023-03-22) (aged 98) Bologna, Italy
Occupation	Activist
Known for	Anti-fascist army deserter Dachau concentration camp survivor trans rights spokesperson

Lucy Salani (12 August 1924 – 22 March 2023) was an Italian activist and the only known Italian transgender person to have survived the Nazi concentration camps.^[1] 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 Gabriella Romano [it] dedicated a biography and a documentary to her.