NEWS Turin, Running for Remembrance with Shaul Ladany

By Pagine Ebraiche staff

“Perhaps race walking is my ambitious way of always being successful. Real athletes don’t enjoy simply participating in a competition, they would rather complete it.” These are the words of a man whose persistence and determination became the message of his life: former professional athlete Shaul Ladany, 83 years old next April.

He went through two tragic experiences: the deportation in a Nazi concentration camp, where he miraculously survived. And the Palestinian attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, where he wasn’t killed only because he was spending the night in a room with athletes of sports that involve the use of weapons and from which the terrorist decided to keep away, as a precaution.

For the third year in a row, Ladany will be the spokesman of Run For Mem, the race for a conscious Remembrance promoted by UCEI (the Union of Italian Jewish Communities). The race will be held on the morning of the 27th of January in Turin, in collaboration with the local Jewish Community and with the suupport of World Jewish Congress and European Jewish Congress. This is the third edition of an initiative that started in 2017 in Rome and continued last year in Bologna.

Run For Mem is once again an important meeting for Remembrance, addressed to different age groups and open to everyone, and it is driven by a specific belief: “Sport can highlight our humanity, helping us overcome distinctions of religion, creed, culture and gender; it represents an important moment to meet other people and get past borders and barriers.” The idea is to affirm life, that continues despite the people who tried over the centuries to exterminate the Jews, as well as other populations, with genocides and massacres. Life goes on, and we must transmit the strength to live – sometimes to survive – and to have the courage to tell what happened, so that it doesn’t happen again.

Translated by Sara Volpe, student at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators of Trieste University, intern at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities.