"Dear Mayor De Angelis, I would have gladly returned to your city for the Peace Prize if in the meantime I had not known that merit was denied to one of my co-religionists, Adele di Consiglio. A lonely woman, who survived the Nazi-fascist barbarism that she annihilated his family like mine.
Instead, honorary citizenship was reconfirmed to Mussolini
who still has many followers in his territory and not only in Europe itself, which has little memory ". These are the words of Edith Bruck - to whom the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella has conferred the honor of Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic - in an open letter to the mayor of Anzio (Rome), Candido De Angelis ,
in which he explains the reasons for his refusal of the Peace Prize
. Poetess and writer, survivor of concentration camps, on February 20, 2021, Bruck received a visit from Pope Francis at her home and at the age of 90 she won the Strega Giovani 2021 Award with 'Il pane perduto' (La nave di Teseo). .
"I, a Holocaust survivor, who for a lifetime have written and witnessed in Italian schools, an arduous and tiring task, without hatred towards anyone, rather in the name of peace and human brotherhood, having had the visit of Pope Francis who asked me forgiveness extended to the martyr people, I owe loyalty to myself and for solidarity with Mrs. Di Consiglio (whom I do not know), I thank you but I cannot accept the Peace Prize where the active nostalgia of the most shameful era is in turmoil , indelible for those who have lived it "underlines Bruck in the letter.
"If Edith Bruck does not accept our award,
which we had thought of with two thousand boys as we do every year, it is a mortification not to me, but to our city
, gold medal for civil merit, which it did not deserve".
So to ANSA the mayor of Anzio Candido De Angelis, regarding Edith Bruck's decision to refuse the Peace Prize.
"Mussolini has had honorary citizenship since 1924 - adds the mayor of Anzio - Before me there were three communist mayors, two socialists, one republican, one DS and no one has ever revoked it. Indeed this topic has never been discussed in City Council from 1946 to 2021 ".