Statement by President Meloni on Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz

Eighty years ago, the horror of the Shoah was revealed to the world in all its terrifying force.

On 27 January 1945, the gates of Auschwitz were torn down and, with them, the wall which had prevented the world from clearly seeing the Nazis’ abominable plan to persecute and exterminate the Jewish people crumbled too.

Men, women, children and elderly people ripped from their homes, forced to leave everything behind, and taken to death camps, where they were killed just because they were Jewish. The premeditated brutality of that plan makes the Shoah a tragedy unparalleled in history. 

The plan carried out by Hitler’s regime also had the complicity of the fascist regime in Italy, with its disgraceful racial laws and involvement in rounding up and deporting people.

There were many Righteous who bravely stood up against that abyss, and did not hesitate to disobey and risk their own lives in order to save thousands of innocent people.

Today, we commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day, we remember the names and surnames of the victims and we revive the memory of what happened, also through the first-hand accounts of survivors and their descendants. Living witnesses to a horrific chapter of our past, to whom we extend our gratitude once again, for it is above all thanks to them that today we know what happened. Sami Modiano said: “I am alive to bear witness. There was a bigger plan for me, and I will keep on remembering for as long as I live”. This is an extraordinary lesson, and one we must embrace in order to cultivate remembrance and increasingly raise awareness among the younger generations.

Anti-Semitism was not defeated when the gates of Auschwitz were pulled down. It is a scourge that survived the Holocaust and has taken on different forms, spreading through new means and channels. Combatting anti-Semitism in all its forms, old and new, is a priority for this Government. 

We have never wavered in this commitment and we intend to pursue it with strength and determination, also by developing a new national strategy for the fight against anti-Semitism, a detailed and scenario-based document that establishes concrete goals and actions to counter a despicable phenomenon that has no place in our societies.

[Courtesy translation]