A week of events to arrive at Holocaust Remembrance Day and remind everyone what the Shoah was. An ancient pain that overlaps with the recent one of the October 7 attack, the hostages still in the hands of Hamas, a resurgence of anti-Semitic hatred and the accusation that Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza, which has reached as far as The Hague. This makes this year's Remembrance Day a moment that goes beyond remembrance or the pages of history books. "Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorates the Shoah, the genocide of the Shoah and its victims. Words and the use that is made of them are important," Noemi Di Segni, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, told ANSA.
For Di Segni, "this and only this must be the focus of all of us on that day." With particular attention, therefore, "to the responsible use of words, first and foremost genocide", referring, precisely, to the accusations against Israel brought to The Hague by South Africa. The Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, warned of the genocide: "A right is evoked in order to trample on other rights. And to do so, a colossal propaganda lie is constructed. This is what is happening at the International Court in The Hague, where Israel has been accused of genocide," he wrote in the online newspaper Shalom. In short, a day with a pain that is not only remembered but lived. And it is also pain that Lia Levi, writer and survivor of the Holocaust, speaks of: "Among those who asked us 'why didn't you defend yourselves?'. Now we have defended ourselves and you have begun (or started again) to hate us," Levi thunders.
"I would like to say to you: you don't deserve our pain," he adds. This year, January 27 falls on Shabbat and the Union of Italian Jewish Communities has planned several moments to remember and honor the memory. In the more than seven days of events, on January 21 the trip to Auschwitz with the winners of the competition "Young people remember the Shoah", together with Minister Valditara. On 23 January it will be the turn of the press conference at Palazzo Chigi. Thursday 25 will open with the ceremony to celebrate Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Quirinale in the presence of President Sergio Mattarella. On the evening of the 25th, the closing moment, with the concert at the Auditorium of Rome "L'infanzia rubata". Many events are also planned by the foundation of the Shoah Museum, where the Jewish Community of Rome will be present, such as on the evening of the 27th, after Shabbat, where a concert of Italian Jewish classical music was organized at the Jewish Museum. In the background, the words of Noemi Di Segni who reiterate the steps to be taken: "If today there is anti-Semitic hatred towards Israel and the Jewish communities, on the issue of memory it means that not enough has been done." And that work "must be strengthened"
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