(ANSA) - ROME, 02 NOV - "Dear Mayor De Angelis, I would be happy to return to your city for the Peace Prize if I hadn't learned in the meantime that a co-religionist of mine, Adele di Consiglio, has been denied a lonely woman, Adele di Consiglio. Nazi-Fascist barbarism that annihilated his family like mine. Instead, honorary citizenship was confirmed to Mussolini who still has many followers in his territory and not only in Europe itself, who has little memory ".
These are the words of Edith Bruck - to whom the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella 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 DeAngelis, 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 for forgiveness extended to martyr people, I owe loyalty to myself and to 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 'lived,' Bruck emphasizes in the letter.
(HANDLE).