President Meloni receives President of the Jewish Community of Rome on 80th anniversary of the rounding up of Jews in the city during WWII

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the rounding up of the Jews of Rome during the Second World War, the President of the Council of Ministers, Giorgia Meloni, received the President of the Jewish Community of Rome, Victor Fadlun, at Palazzo Chigi today.

President Meloni issued the following statement in the margins of the meeting: “On 16 October 1943, one of the most heinous crimes in Italian history was committed. In the early hours of the morning, Nazi troops, with the complicity of the Italian fascist regime, began a ruthless manhunt in the capital. 1,259 innocent people were taken away from their homes and deported to the death camps. Among them were also more than two hundred children, torn from their innocence and sentenced to death. Only 16 returned from the abyss of Auschwitz. An atrocity that has marred the history of the Italian people forever, and that must serve as a warning against anything similar ever happening again, also in other forms. Today, we renew our commitment to keep the memory of those terrible events alive and to fight the virus of anti-Semitism in all its forms, new and old. The Government expresses its closeness to the Jewish Community of Rome, to the relatives and descendants of the deported. Today more than ever, following the terrible attack by Hamas, we reiterate our solidarity with the entire population of Israel, hurt once again by anti-Semitic hatred”.