Vandals destroy memorial plaque for Holocaust survivors
Published: Saturday, Jan 6th 2024, 11:10
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In the northern Italian town of Saltrio near the border with Switzerland, unknown persons have vandalized a memorial plaque in honour of the politician and Holocaust survivor Liliana Segre.
The name of the senator for life was scratched off with a sharp object, the Ansa news agency reported on Saturday, citing Italian newspapers.
According to the information provided, the board is now to be replaced and protected with a plexiglass panel in future.
Segre is one of the best-known surviving witnesses of the Shoah in Italy. In December 1943, at the age of 13, she and her father Alberto tried to flee to Switzerland via Saltrio. Both were turned back by the Swiss authorities and arrested by Italian fascists just one day later.
At the end of January 1944, the two were deported from Milan to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Alberto Segre was murdered by the National Socialists on April 27, 1944.
Liliana Segre became widely known outside of Italy in October 2022 when she chaired the first session of the newly elected Italian Senate as President of the Senate. In her speech, she appealed to the other senators to take a stand against hatred and exclusion - and recalled the fascists' seizure of power a hundred years earlier.
The constituent session of the Senate also made international headlines because the right-wing politician Ignazio La Russa, a former member of the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), was elected President of the Senate.
©Keystone/SDA
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