Italian President Sergio
Mattarella said on Holocaust Remembrance Day Wednesday that the
Auschwitz extermination camp was a reminder of the horrors men
are capable of, 71 years after its liberation.
The camp, in Nazi-occupied Poland, was liberated by the
Soviet army on January 27, 1945. At least 1.1 million prisoners
are estimated to have died there, including many Italians, and
events are being held across the country to keep the memory of
the mass murder alive.
"Auschwitz, with its barbed wire, gas chambers, huts and
ovens does not leave us. On the contrary, it asks us constantly,
it forces us every time to return to the edge of the abyss and
stare down into it, with our eyes and minds full of pain and
moral revulsion," President Mattarella said during a
commemorative ceremony at the Quirinale palace.
He stressed the importance of realising that even today,
hatred and fanaticism cause innocent deaths around the world,
and he warned against the dangers of "other deadly types of
racism, discrimination and intolerance".
Italian Premier Matteo Renzi tweeted his memory of visiting
Auschwitz with Holocaust survivor Nedo Fiano, adding the words
"never again".
The President of the Union of Italian Jewish communities
Renzo Gattegna said the remembrance day was a chance to honour
victims and to shun any theory of inequality between people that
can lead to oppression and slavery.
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