Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced on Monday (27), International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a new national strategy against anti-Semitism, amid controversy between the country's Jewish community and humanitarian and anti-fascist organizations over the war in the Gaza Strip.
The date commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi extermination camp, by the Red Army of the Soviet Union on January 27, 1945.
“Anti-Semitism was not defeated with the breaking down of the gates of Auschwitz. It is a plague that survived the Holocaust, has taken on different forms and is spreading through new channels.
Combating anti-Semitism, in all its forms, ancient and modern, is a priority for this government,” says a message from Meloni, who is visiting the Persian Gulf.
“We intend to carry this effort forward with strength and determination, including through the new national strategy for the fight against anti-Semitism, a document that sets objectives and concrete actions to combat an abject phenomenon,” added the Prime Minister, recalling that the Holocaust “led by Hitler's regime found the complicity of the fascists in Italy, through the infamy of the racial laws.”
Meanwhile, Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked by controversy in Italy. In Milan, the local Jewish community pulled out of a meeting with students organized by the National Association of Italian Partisans (Anpi) because the organization defined the war in Gaza as “genocide.”
In Rome, a projection on the Pyramid of Cestius states that the National Institute of Political Studies (ANPI) and NGOs such as Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, and Emergency would have stood "on Hitler's side" if Israel had bombed the trains to Auschwitz. "Hypocrisy and antisemitism are their banners," the message emphasizes.
These NGOs have been taking a tough stance on the conflict in the Gaza Strip and accuse the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of massacring the civilian population of the Palestinian enclave.
“This is a despicable action on a day when the memory of the Holocaust and respect for its victims should be taken seriously,” said Amnesty spokesman Riccardo Noury. (HANDLE)
