Run for Memory

Run for Memory, run for life, run for the future. The fifth edition of Run for Mem will take place Sunday 23 January 2022 in Novara. Organized by the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities in collaboration, this year, with the Jewish community of Vercelli, Biella, Novara, the race for remembrance will cover five kilometers with stops in various symbolic places of the Piedmontese city to keep the memory alive. It will be a symbolic response to the no-vax procession which recently in Novara had shamefully exploited the Holocaust, with demonstrators disguised as deportees.
The initiative was unanimously condemned by institutions and organizations, as the president of the Jewish Community of Vercelli Rossella Bottini Treves had recalled. “In Novara as elsewhere, Italian society has strongly expressed its indignation. This represents the necessary humus on which to cultivate the antidote to the virus of ignorance of historical facts and the lack of respect for the victims of lagers”.
Participating in Run For Mem on January 23 will therefore represent another opportunity to reaffirm that the lesson of the past is still alive and cannot be exploited. And it will be a time to celebrate life through sport. “The idea is to affirm life, which continues despite all the attempts, perpetrated over the centuries, to exterminate the Jews, as well as other populations, with genocides and massacres”, this is the belief driving the Run For Mem project. “Life goes on and the strength to live, sometimes to survive, must be transmitted with conviction, having the courage to tell what happened so that it never happens again”. “We’ll do it with the participation of all citizens, through a path in which we will meet history. Running together we will transmit this strong message of life”, is the invitation of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities.
The initiative is patronized by ANPI – National Association of Italian Partisans Novara, ANPI Vercelli, Prefecture of Novara, Province of Novara, Province of Vercelli, CONI, MEIS, CDEC Foundation. The route starts in Piazza Matteotti and continues straight onto via Fratelli Rosselli, then Piazza Martiri, towards the Police headquarters, then turns into viale Roma (where the Kaatz family residence is located). It reaches the Cemetery and then up towards Piazza Santa Caterina, where the installation ceremony of some Stumbling Stones will be held. The endpoint of the race is at the BPN Foundation – Palazzo Bellini.

Click here to register for Run For Mem in Novara.