ROME (EJP)--- We say no to anti-Semitism, even when it is disguised as anti-Zionism”. With these words, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano celebrated Holocaust Memorial Day in Rome on Thursday.
The president condemned all kinds of anti-Jewish prejudice in the Quirinale palace, where the representatives of the Italian government and institutions gathered.
Along with the dignitaries, Napolitano gave his speech before the representatives of the Jewish organisations in Italy and a delegation of Italian students, who studied the history of the Shoah.
Napolitano said that the extermination of the Jews “was probably the most appalling tragedy in Europe’s history”.
He then called on the students to “fight all forms of racism, starting with anti-Semitism, even when, disguised as anti-Zionism, it aims at denying Israel’s right to exist.”
Riccardo Pacifici, the spokesman for Rome’s Jewish community, welcomed Napolitano’s speech for “its astonishing clearness and far-sightedness”.
Speaking to EJP, Pacifici recalled that “lately, anti-Jewish graffiti mentions the word Jew very seldom, while they attack Zionists instead”.
“With his words the president swept away all linguistic ambiguities that are often used in the far-right and far-left parties to attack Israel while claiming not to be anti-Semitic.”
After the celebration, the Italian government unanimously approved a decree for the creation of an observatory of anti-Semitism and making racial hatred a crime.
Week of events
The ceremony at the Quirinale is only one of the numerous celebrations organised in Italy for something that, conceived by an ad-hoc law in 2000 as Memorial Day, became a whole Memorial Week of events.
From north to south, a series of conferences, lectures, visits to historical monuments and movie screenings are scheduled to keep the memory alive.
A particularly moving event took place in Rome: on 23 January, Italian Auschwitz survivor Samuele Modiano, 77, was finally able to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah, as he was in the camp when he turned 13.
To the sound of the children’s choir, Sami publicly read his portion of the Torah in front of Rome’s chief rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, who commented on the event saying that "this shall be interpreted as a great message of return to life for all of mankind".
Originally from Rhodes, young Sami was deported together with another 2,500 Jews from the Greek islands under Italian domination.
After the liberation, Sami never spoke about his experience until two years ago, when he decided to transmit the memory and returned to Auschwitz-Birkenau to tell Roman school children about the Shoah.
Next week, accompanied by their teachers, 500 Italian students are scheduled to leave on the Train of Memory from Florence to Auschwitz, where they will visit the extermination camp.