“This is yet another outrage to the memory of the Roman Holocaust and an affront to the Stumbling Stones.” Victor Fadlun, president of the Jewish Community of Rome, strongly condemned the defacement of two Stolpersteine in the Trastevere neighborhood. These small cement blocks honor victims of Nazi-Fascist deportations. Engraved with biographical information, the stones are placed in front of the victims’ last known homes. These stones bear the names of Michele Ezio Spizzichino and Aurelio Spagnoletto, two Roman Jews who were deported and killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Fadlun observed, “Attacking the memory of two Holocaust victims on the night of Yom Kippur is an outrage against the Jewish community, but also against the city of Rome and its history.” He added that those seeking to erase those names “want to make the victims invisible and rehabilitate the hatred that led to their deaths.” Fadlun stated that the paint used for the defacement “bears the colors of the Palestinian flag,” which confirms “the distortion of truth and history, then as now.” The Stolpersteine of Spizzichino and Spagnoletto, located on Via Dandolo, were also targeted in an attempted arson attack at the end of October 2023. Fadlun expressed hope that those responsible “will be quickly identified and punished.”
Victor Fadlun on Stumbling Stones Vandalized, “An Outrage to Rome”
