Holocaust survivor and
life Senator Liliana Segre, 89, told Vatican News on Monday,
International Holocaust Remembrance Day, that she is "very
concerned" about the "reemergence of feelings of hate".
Segre said "this wave isn't anomalous" but is due to the
economic crisis and "also the result of very wrong teachings, of
sovereignism (nationalism) and populism".
"Young people, learn not to listen to those who yell the
loudest," she said.
Pope Francis also said "remembrance is dutiful" on this day.
He warned against becoming indifferent to the Shoah.
"If we lose the memory, we annihilate the future," he said.
"May the anniversary of the Holocaust, the unspeakable
cruelty that humanity discovered 75 years ago, be a call to
stop, to be silent and remember.
"We need this, so as not to become indifferent".
Rome on Friday became the latest Italian city to make Segre
an honorary citizen.
Segre survived Auschwitz as a girl.
She was named senator for life by President Sergio
Mattarella on 19 January 2018.
Born into a Milanese Jewish family in 1930, Segre was
expelled from her school after the promulgation of the Italian
Racial Laws in 1938.
In 1943 she was arrested with many members of her family and
deported to Auschwitz.
After 1990 she started to speak to the public, especially
young people, about her experience.
Segre was recently given a police escort after anti-Semitic
threats against her.
Premier Giuseppe Conte said remembering the Shoah was "an
antidote to barbarity".
"The remembrance of the facts is fundamental so that this
never happens again," he said.
President Sergio Mattarella said the appearance of "Juden
Hier (Jews Here) scrawled on the home of the son of a Holocaust
survivor in the northern town of Mondovì last week was "ignoble"
and shows "how unfortunately anti-Semitism has not disappeared".
He said "the Shoah transcends time and is a perennial
warnings".
He also said that Jewish persecution under Fascism was
"ferocious" and said "enough of whitewashing the crimes of
Fascism".
"The persecution of Jews in Italy was not watered down," he
said.
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