A Holocaust survivor from Italy has been escorted through the centre of Milan alongside hundreds of mayors and thousands of citizens for a mass anti-racism demonstration.
Survivor Liliana Segre walked Tuesday evening through the city centre behind a banner reading: ‘Hatred has no future.’
The march comes in light of revelations that Segre is subject to some 200 social media attacks every day and had to be put under police protection last month.
Holocaust survivor and Italian senator for life, Liliana Segre, talks after the march attended by of hundreds of mayors and other supporters under the theme ‘Hate has no future. She told the crowd: ‘I have known hatred. I have known what it means to be a reject of the society to which I believed I belonged’
An anti-racism demonstration in Milan’s Victor Emmanuel II arcade in Milan on Tuesday evening, attended by thousands
Liliana Segre, an 89-year-old Auschwitz survivor and senator-for-life, (pictured, centre) , waves to photographers with Milan’s Mayor Giuseppe Sala during an anti-racism demonstration in Milan’s Victor Emmanuel II arcade that was joined by mayors of some 600 Italian towns on Tuesday
‘I have known hatred. I have known what it means to be a reject of the society to which I believed I belonged,’ Segre, an 89-year-old senator-for-life who survived Auschwitz as a child, told the crowd.
‘I heard the words of hatred, hateful and insulting, and I saw with my eyes the realization of a ferocious program prepared from hatred,’ she said.
The 89-year-old said she now looks for hope in the eyes of school children when she tells her story, and in the eyes of mayors and ordinary citizens ‘who came here to shout, “Enough hatred.” ‘
Segre was given a police escort last month after a stream of anti-Semitic posts and threats were aimed at her when she championed a new parliamentary panel against racism, discrimination, anti-Semitism and online hatred, known locally as the Segre commission.
Liliana Segre (centre) walks in front of a banner reading in Italian: ‘Hatred has no future’
Liliana Segre, flanked by Milan’s Mayor Giuseppe Sala, speaks at the anti-racism demonstration in Milan on Tuesday, December 10
Hundreds of mayors and other supporters gather for a rally entitled ‘Hate has no future’ to show solidarity with Holocaust survivor and Italian senator for life, Liliana Segre
‘Let’s leave hatred to the anonymous ones at the keyboards,’ she said to cheers in front of City Hall.
Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala told thousands in the crowd, including about 1,000 mayors, that such demonstrations would continue ‘until this climate of hatred changes.’
The mayors, wearing sashes in the Italian green, white and red, were applauded as they entered the arcaded Galleria, and the crowd chanted ‘Liliana’ when Segre met the mayors below the central glass dome.
Liliana Segre attends the demonstration with Milan’s Mayor Giuseppe Sala, (pictured, fourth from right in front row). In Italy, controversy flared recently when Segre called for the creation of a parliamentary committee to combat hate, racism and anti-Semitism after revelations that she is subject to some 200 social media attacks each day
Crowds gather for anti-racism demonstration fronted by Liliana Segre. The march was organized by the Italian mayor’s association and was meant to cut across party lines. But the role of League leader Matteo Salvini in fomenting anti-migrant and racist sentiment was recognised
Thousands of ordinary Italians joined the march or cheered form the sidelines, singing the anti-fascist anthem ‘Bella Ciao,’ as the march proceeded through the 19th century Galleria to the square in front of City Hall.
The march was organized by the Italian mayor’s association and was meant to cut across party lines. But the role of League leader Matteo Salvini in fomenting anti-migrant and racist sentiment was recognised.
Bologna Mayor Virginio Merola said that rising racism in Italy could be traced to the country’s long economic crisis along with the League’s provocative rhetoric.
Bologna is the largest city in Emilia-Romagna, a traditionally left-wing stronghold that faces tough regional elections next month, where Salvini is poised to make strong gains.
‘There is too much racism, hatred and anti-Semitism in Europe, and Italy,’ Merola said.
‘We need to react and show citizens that the way to live together is through civil cohabitation.’
Segre said the history of Italian Jews was represented in each of the 8,000 towns and cities in Italy ‘in the names of the streets, to the headstones, to the rare Jewish vestiges,’ that will remain when there are no more survivors to bear witness.
Liliana Segre, an 89-year-old Auschwitz survivor and senator-for-life, center, attends an anti-racism demonstration in Milan’s Victor Emmanuel II arcade
It was a reminder made more poignant by recent anti-Semitic incidents involving just such markers of Jewish life. The city council of Schio, north of Vicenza, last month blocked as ‘divisive’ the town mayor’s move to put up so-called stumbling stones to remember Schio’s Holocaust victims.
And vandals in Rome defaced street signs that had been rededicated to honor two Jewish female scholars and an anti-fascist professor. The streets had previously been named after anti-Semitic scientists.
Segre is backing a National Museum of Resistance, which was announced this week to be built in Milan. ‘It is a moral commitment to support and carry forward the memory,’ she said.