The idea of ​​the false disease came to Borromeo during the Nazi-fascist persecutions of 16 October 1943 against the Jewish citizens of Rome, when the Gestapo entered the city and other homes to arrest around a thousand people. So it was that the doctors invented an entire ward in which they hospitalized the unfortunates under a false name, and compiled a series of false medical records with “K disease”. The fake patients were then declared dead once they received false identity documents that would have allowed them to escape. Later, Sacerdoti said that after that episode the hospital became a refuge for many persecuted people, such as the partisans. Once Rome was liberated and the war was over, Giovanni Borromeo received the Cross of Merit of the Order of Malta and the Silver Medal of Valor.