Di Segni (UCEI): Never again for real?

“We are heading towards Holocaust Remembrance Day, on January 27th with great concern because, after October 7th, it cannot be celebrated just like it was in the past years. The consistency and use of the most important words that mark the path of remembrance and the warning ‘never again’ must be employed with the utmost responsibility and awareness, and any overuse must be limited. Because of this, we have shared some notes in which we repeat fundamental concepts in preparation for this important moment.”
These are the words and thoughts of UCEI president Noemi Di Segni, looking at the time of year when the initiatives dedicated to the Shoah and the crimes of Nazi-Fascism are most numerous. Ahead of January this year, what happened just over three months ago cannot be ignored. On October 7th “the world changed,” she emphasized in a statement, and all of this “adds further difficulties and doubts on the way we should take action and strengthen consistent commitment to Remembrance.”
Everywhere, as announced by Di Segni, certain concepts will be affirmed: the uniqueness of the Shoah “as a genocide that had no precedent or equal, and in which scientific planning, presuppositions and methods of execution have never occurred in any other massacre or genocide.” Some other concepts that will be pointed out are the fact that Holocaust Remembrance Day is dedicated “only to the remembrance of the Shoah, as it is written in the founding law,” and that the remembrance of those events should not just be “a theoretical concept limited to the knowledge of history or to express closeness to the Jewish people,” but also an encouragement to “bring past phenomena up to date and recognize them in the present.” On this occasion, the Jewish community is also going to draw attention to the fact that the “generic condemnation,” as well as “the calls for boycott, isolation and the demonization of Israel and all of its institutions” are part “of the expressions of antisemitism,” just like “the reversal, or rather, the attribution to Israel of names related to the Shoah.” To conclude, there is a call to use the “right words” because today as the words that describe the horror of the Shoah are today “referred to Israel,” which is an abuse that “generates hatred and prejudice.”
 
Translation by Martina Bandini, revised by Klara Mattiussi, students at the Secondary School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste, trainees at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – Pagine Ebraiche.