A large ceremony today in Auschwitz to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp . Sergio Mattarella will represent Italy, returning to the site of horror less than two years after a visit in April 2023, when he took part in the "March of the Living", an annual event that sees thousands of young people march between Auschwitz and Birkenau.

The number of international participants in the event is impressive. Dozens of delegations will be present, including crowned heads and presidents. Along with the President of the Republic, King Charles III, the royals of Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden will arrive in Auschwitz, just to name a few. And then presidents such as Emmanuel Macron for France, Frank Walter Steinmeier for Germany, Alexander Van der Bellen for Austria. There will also be prime ministers such as Olaf Scholz for Germany and the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola.

The official program is notable for the absence of the Russian delegation, that is, the liberators of the camp. And the absence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also notable. For the Jewish state, Education Minister Yoav Kisch is currently confirmed.

President Mattarella has always paid great and unremitting attention to the need to keep the memory of the horror alive and to be able to pass it on to new generations: to do so, he has moved the traditional ceremony that takes place every year at the Quirinale for the Day of Remembrance to tomorrow .

Yesterday, Pope Francis also recalled that "the horror of the extermination of millions of Jews and people of other faiths that occurred in those years cannot be forgotten or denied. I renew my appeal - he added - for everyone to collaborate in eradicating the scourge of anti-Semitism, together with every form of religious discrimination and persecution ."

Todde: «Let's learn from history»

" Our most illustrious fellow citizen, Antonio Gramsci, said that history teaches but has no students . Years later, Primo Levi also took up the concept with his famous phrase, "all those who forget their past are condemned to relive it". And the Day of Remembrance should serve this purpose: to learn from history. It should serve, that is, to ensure that what happened in the past never happens again", writes the president of the Sardinia Region Alessandra Todde in a post.

"And that is why - he continues - rather than tending to remember, to look back, the Day of Remembrance becomes a vital anniversary if it pushes all of us to question the present. To ask ourselves if the hatred that generated the Shoah and the extermination camps is reappearing today in new forms, new ways. And if we look at certain areas of the world, and I think of what is happening in Gaza, what is happening a few miles from us, in North Africa, where women and men in search of a better life in Europe suffer the worst deprivations of dignity and rights in real concentration camps; if I think of Ukraine or any other of the 56 armed conflicts, the highest number since the end of the Second World War, I think that Gramsci and Primo Levi were right. But I am an incurable optimist. And I also think that we still have time to prove them wrong, Gramsci and Levi. We have time to stop the hatred that is pervading the world."

(Online Union)

© Riproduzione riservata