Holocaust Remembrance Day: presentation of initiatives supported by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers

Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers Alfredo Mantovano and the President of UCEI [Union of Italian Jewish Communities], Noemi Di Segni, held a press conference this morning to present the five initiatives being supported by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers for International Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January:

• the ‘2023 remembrance concert’ to be held at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome on 23 January, with the preview of the documentary film ‘Il Respiro di Shlomo’ by Ruggero Gabbai and the violin that belonged to Jan Hillenbrand, which was played for five years in the Auschwitz Lagerkapelle and has since been restored by the ‘Istituto di Letteratura Musicale Concentrazionaria’ in Barletta. Musician Vincenzo Bolognese, first violin at Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera, will be playing the music from Auschwitz retrieved and arranged by Maestro Francesco Lotoro; 
• the sixth edition of the non-competitive race ‘Run for Mem’ to be held in Milan on 29 January, with the two routes covering ‘remembrance locations’;
• the opening of the tenth edition of the exhibition ‘1938-1945. The persecution of Jews in Italy. Documents for a story’, to be held in Trieste on 24 January, featuring period documents and photographs made available by the CDEC [Centre of Contemporary Jewish Documentation] in Milan, and other historically important documentation made available by the State Archive of Trieste;
• the opening of an exhibition provisionally titled ‘Death camps: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka’, to be held at the Casina dei Vallati in Rome on 26 January. This exhibition, organised by the non-profit ‘Shoah Museum’ Foundation, tells the story of Aktion Reinhardt, the code name for the project to exterminate the Polish Jews in the General Governorate;
• the opening of the eleventh edition of the contemporary art biennial ‘Arte in Memoria’ [‘Art in Memory’], to be held at the synagogue in Ostia Antica on 29 January, organised by the ‘Arte in Memoria’ cultural association. Every two years, to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, this cultural association invites internationally renowned artists to produce an original piece on the topic of remembrance. 

In Italy, Holocaust Remembrance Day was established by Law no. 211 of 20 July 2000 to remember the Shoah, the racial laws, the persecution of Jews, those who were deported, imprisoned and killed and those who opposed the extermination, risking their own lives to save others. The Committee for the coordination of Shoah commemoration, established in 2009, is in charge of coordinating the initiatives supported by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.