MILAN – Italian Jewish leaders protested Tuesday over Holocaust survivor Primo Levi’s name being quoted on a flyer for a pro-Palestinian demonstration planned in the Italian capital on Saturday to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day. did.
“Primo Levi must remain in our memories,” said Noemi Di Segni, president of the Federation of Italian Jewish Communities, news agency ANSA reported. “Please have the dignity to express your thoughts without tarnishing the memory of survivors and find other quotes.”
Posters for pro-Palestinian demonstrations include references to Levy’s words about the need to remember “because what happened may happen again,” implicitly referring to what Levy wrote. He is referring to Gaza, not the Holocaust.
The incident exemplifies concerns expressed by Di Seni at a press conference earlier in the day that Holocaust memory is being “used out of context and directed against Israel and the Jewish people.” Ta. She said, “We have heard distorted words from pastors, teachers, politicians, and institutional figures.”
Di Seni acknowledged that Italy’s Jewish community would be tempted to celebrate Memorial Day in private, given the rise in anti-Semitic sentiment surrounding the Israel-Hamas war, but said that hundreds of He said the event will be held off-duty and will proceed almost as planned.
“Rather than celebrating a memory that calls for weeping for the Jews, for the Jews, with the Jews, or with the survivors, we celebrate Italy and fascism for what happened to them. It’s about recognizing responsibility,” she said. She spoke at a press conference at the Chigi Palace alongside Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Undersecretary of State Alfredo Mantovano.
Plans to hold traditional marathon foot races in several Italian cities to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day on Saturday have been scrapped, despite assurances from the Italian government to provide maximum safety.
“Of course security was organized, but it seems unthinkable to be running through the streets of Italy this year,” she said, adding that “those with their arms raised in a fascist salute…almost by constitutional freedom “They’re protected,” he pointed out sarcastically. ”
She cited the fascist salute at a recent far-right rally in Rome and last week’s High Court ruling that fascist salutes are not a crime unless they risk causing violence or are aimed at reviving a fascist party. did.
As another example, Italian media reported that a partisan association in a Tuscan town has launched a campaign to protest against “genocide against Palestinians” in the run-up to Saturday’s Remembrance Day with a “Never Again” slogan reminiscent of the lessons of the Holocaust. It was reported that they were planning a demonstration using the phrase “. The people were protected by the state of Israel. ”