The courage of Diamantina Vivante Salonichio

The Union of the Italian Jewish Communities and all 21 Jewish Communities in Italy join together in an embrace with Alessandro Salonichio, president of the Jewish Community of Trieste, for the loss of his mother, Mrs. Diamantina Vivante Salonichio. A custodian and witness of the memory of the Shoah for years, Mrs. Diamantina, in November 1944, was only 16 years old when she was deported with her mother and sisters first to Ravensbrück and then to Bergen-Belsen. Her brother, Moise, had been deported to Auschwitz in 1943. Her father managed to escape deportation.
Diamantina was the only one to return from Bergen-Belsen and bear witness to its horror with tenacity for her entire long life: fear, hunger, tuberculosis, beatings, executions. When she returned to Trieste, her father Zaccaria was waiting for her.
The stumbling stone dedicated to her in 2018 at Piazza Cavana 3, the residence of the Vivante family, is one of the few on which the word “liberated” is written. Her mother Sarina and her brothers Giulia, Ester, Enrichetta, and Moise did not have the same fate. With her, the last witness of the atrocities suffered in the camps passes away, but the spark of memory that she ignited will not be extinguished, and we will keep it always lit. May her memory be a blessing.