International Holocaust Remembrance Day - The importance of remembering

Every year around the world, January 27 is celebrated as Remembrance Day, the anniversary during which 15 million victims of the Holocaust are remembered. Art and culture are very powerful tools for conveying fundamental messages. Every year it is mandatory for everyone to celebrate this important day which must see us united in remembering a tragic and dark page of our history and in contrasting all forms of hatred and xenophobia

Exhibitions, television programs, book presentations, concerts, shows and film screenings: there are numerous events organized throughout Italy to celebrate Holocaust Remembrance Day to remember the millions of victims and to raise awareness of the memory and solidarity of those who have been able to fight and resist with courage in the darkest page of history.

ON TV
"Binario 21" - Rai1 broadcasts live an exclusive television event with Senator Liliana Segre and Fabio Fazio on a trip to the Shoah Memorial of Milan Central Station. From Platform 21, on 30 January 1944, the freight train departed which took thirteen-year-old Liliana Segre to the Auschwitz extermination camp, together with 604 other people, including her father Alberto: only 22 of them returned. It is a journey into time with the memories of the senator who also makes use of photographic, press and video materials of the time, to remember what must never be forgotten.

"Drawings from the holocaust" - a documentary broadcast by The History Channel showing the 30,000 drawings made between 1939 and 1945 and recovered after the war. Portraits, landscapes, abstract subjects, caricatures and drawings found on wrapping paper, on medical prescription books, but also on the back of SS circulars or on cigarette papers. A document of the story of those who had the courage to bear witness to the crimes committed by the Nazi regime.

PODCASTS
Voci della memoria - A podcast created by Radio 24 and Il Sole 24 Ore, edited by Daniele Bellasio and Dario Ricci. The stories of the sons and daughters of those who survived the Holocaust, the words of those who have chosen to collect the memory of those who are no longer there, witnesses of a past not to be forgotten.

Devo raccontare. Le memorie di Masha Rolnikaite - A project of the Ca' Foscari university radio. In this episode some memoirs of Masha Rolnikaite are read, written between 1941 and 1945. Rolnikaite was born in Vilnius in 1922 and with the German occupation of Lithuania she first experienced the restrictions of the city ghetto and then the horrors of the Stutthoff camp – where she worked as a necrophora. Having survived the war, she moved to Russia, where she worked on an adaptation of her diaries, entitled I Must Tell and published in 1964.

EVENTS IN THE CITY
Florence - In Florence, for the day of remembrance, special thematic visits to the Museo Novecento and the Murate Art District are promoted, including in the rooms of the former prison. The Museo Novecento will present a special appointment with the singer-songwriter, author and performer Letizia Fuochi and the performance "Paper Snow - the Song of Memory", accompanied by guitarist Francesco Frank Cusumano.

Milan - Institutions, organizations and associations this year too have contributed to the realization of numerous initiatives which began this morning with the laying of the new stumbling blocks. This year 26 people, men, women and children, whole families, will be remembered in 19 different addresses in the city. Since 2017, 171 people have been remembered through stumbling blocks in Milan, in 135 different addresses throughout the city. The first stone, placed in the presence of Senator Liliana Segre, a survivor of the extermination camp, was set on 19 January six years ago, in front of her house in Corso Magenta 55, in memory of Alberto Segre, her beloved father . Deported with her on January 30, 1944, he died in Auschwitz three months later.

Rome - In the rich program of free events organized in Rome, entitled "Memory generates the future", there is a double film screening on January 27, at 6 and 8 pm, at Palazzo delle Esposizioni: the first is "Jona who lived in the whale" by Roberto Faenza and the second is "The truce" by Francesco Rosi, a cinematographic reading of Primo Levi's novel with John Turturro as the novelist, which recounts the long return journey from Auschwitz to Italy.
Also in Rome at 21, the Auditorium Parco della Musica hosts "Lechaim", a concert for Remembrance Day by Raiz and the Auditorium Band, which deal with music related to the theme of the Shoah and discrimination, but also pieces composed by contemporary Jewish artists.

Turin - The Polo del '900 and the City of Turin recall the Holocaust with a musical repertoire with a renewed approach, already suggested in the title "Lechaim", that is "to Life". The concert opens with a speech by the Honorable Furio Colombo, drafter of the 2000 Law which established the Day of Remembrance, and in the presence of Lidia Maksymowicz, a survivor of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

Voi che vivete sicuri
Nelle vostre tiepide case,
voi che trovate tornando a sera
Il cibo caldo e visi amici:
Considerate se questo è un uomo
Che lavora nel fango
Che non conosce pace
Che lotta per un pezzo di pane
Che muore per un sì o per un no.
Considerate se questa è una donna,
Senza capelli e senza nome
Senza più forza di ricordare
Vuoti gli occhi e freddo il grembo
Come una rana d’inverno.
Meditate che questo è stato:
Vi comando queste parole.
Scolpitele nel vostro cuore
Stando in casa andando per via,
Coricandovi alzandovi;
Ripetetele ai vostri figli.
O vi si sfaccia la casa,
La malattia vi impedisca,
I vostri nati torcano il viso da voi.
Se questo è un uomo - Primo Levi