{"id":2681,"date":"2016-01-30T22:08:28","date_gmt":"2016-01-30T21:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moked.it\/international\/?p=2681"},"modified":"2016-01-30T22:08:28","modified_gmt":"2016-01-30T21:08:28","slug":"news-italian-poll-questions-efficacy-of-international-holocaust-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moked.it\/international\/2016\/01\/30\/news-italian-poll-questions-efficacy-of-international-holocaust-day\/","title":{"rendered":"NEWS Italian Poll Questions Efficacy of International Holocaust Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"toi\"<\/a>By Rossella Tercatin*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every year, the Italian Ministry of Education sends a delegation of over 100 students on a trip to Nazi death camps called \u201cViaggio della Memoria\u201d (Journey of Memory). Guided by historians, Holocaust survivors and Jewish leaders, several high-profile representatives of the Italian government also regularly join the annual trip.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Italian Education Minister Stefania Giannini and the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), Renzo Gattegna, signed a document to strengthen Holocaust studies in Italian schools. The January 19 signing took place at the historic Tempel synagogue in Krakov, as the two joined this year\u2019s delegation of students.<\/p>\n

The ministry trip to Poland is only one of the dozens organized by Italian schools. Every year, thousands of initiatives, conferences, concerts, and performances are held all over the country, while the Italian embassy in Israel organizes a large ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

So at first glance, it appears Italy should take January 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, very seriously.<\/p>\n

However, the results of a new poll on the subject show a more nuanced situation, and many Jewish leaders and opinion makers have begun to wonder to what extent January 27 effectively keeps alive the memory of Europe\u2019s darkest times.<\/p>\n

Conducted by SWG, a leading Italian pollster, with the cooperation of Italian Jewish paper Pagine Ebraiche, the survey interviewed over 1,000 representatives of the adult general Italian population between January 11 and January 13, 2016.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of respondents agreed that Holocaust Remembrance Day \u201chelps in developing a conscience\u201d (81%), \u201chelps to keep awareness of these issues alive\u201d (87%), and \u201craises awareness of the historical facts\u201d (91%).<\/p>\n

According to the recent poll, over 60% of Italians feel either \u201cvery\u201d or \u201cfairly personally involved\u201d in the observance of January 27.<\/p>\n

At the same time, however, the percentage of people who consider January 27 \u201cuseless\u201d has doubled in two years, increasing from 11% in 2014 to 22% in 2016. A consistent 16% believes the event should only be for Jews.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the percentage of those aware of what January 27 represents decreased more than ten points, from 54.4% in 2014 to 43.8% in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese results allow us to understand, how, on the one hand, the culture of \u2018memory\u2019 has acquired a high and comforting level of importance in the majority of public opinion, and, on the other hand, that the perception of \u2018remembrance\u2019 is encountering a progressive, alarming erosion,\u201d commented Pagine Ebraiche editor-in-chief, Guido Vitale, in an editorial. He called the report a \u201cwarning sign\u201d and urged greater quality rather than quantity of initiatives.<\/p>\n

The poll also highlighted the different perceptions of Italian anti-Semitism between the general population and the Jewish population.<\/p>\n

In the final question of the SWG-Pagine Ebraiche poll, those surveyed were asked, \u201cDo you think anti-Semitism in Italy is still: very present\/fairly present\/little or not present at all?\u201d<\/p>\n

Over 61% of the respondents from the general population said that it is \u201clittle\u201d or \u201cnot present at all,\u201d with 34% opting for \u201cfairly present\u201d and only 4% for \u201cvery present.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, when the similar questions were posed to the Italian Jewish population in a different survey, 18% of the respondents described anti-Semitism in Italy as \u201ca very big problem\u201d and 45% as a \u201cfairly big problem.\u201d Another 36% of Jews said that it is \u201cnot a very big problem,\u201d and only 1% \u201cnot a problem at all,\u201d according to a survey by the London-based Jewish Policy Research.<\/p>\n

The report, sponsored by the European Union through its Fundamental Rights Agency, was based on data gathered at the end of 2012 but published in January 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is the risk of hypertrophy of [Holocaust] remembrance, but there is also the risk of a fossilization of remembrance, with civil rituals that keep on repeating themselves in a mechanical way, losing their significance,\u201d warned Italian historian Simon Levis Sullam in an interviewed published in the daily Corriere Della Sera.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Holocaust Memorial Day should maintain its role as a way for reflecting on the past in order to reject intolerance and racism today. Otherwise, remembering Auschwitz loses its meaning,\u201d said Levis Sullam.<\/p>\n

Levis Sullam recently authored the book \u201cI carnefici italiani\u201d (The Italian Executioners), aimed at debunking the myth of \u201cthe good Italians.\u201d That widespread narrative claims that Italy was not really guilty for the persecution of its Jewish population, and lays the blame on the Nazis.<\/p>\n

Indeed, one of the more controversial aspects most frequently cited by educators and historians of Italy\u2019s observance of International Holocaust Remembrance day is that the remembrance is rarely connected with the acceptance of national responsibility. Rather, it tends to emphasize either the stories of individual Italian righteous or the atrocities committed by the Germans.<\/p>\n

And as the aging Holocaust survivors inevitably die, who will be able to counter this revised historical narrative?<\/p>\n

*The article was published in The Times of Israel on January 29, 2016.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rossella Tercatin* Every year, the Italian Ministry of Education sends a delegation of over 100 students on a trip to Nazi death camps called \u201cViaggio della Memoria\u201d (Journey of Memory). Guided by historians, Holocaust survivors and Jewish leaders, several high-profile representatives of the Italian government also regularly join the annual trip. 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