Page 67 - Mediterraneo e dintorni - nr 7

e poi a gruppi ci portavano nel- se avevamo ancora i denti, se era- pia raccogliere questo messaggio
la sala delle docce, tanto cara ai vamo abili al lavoro. Io mi ricordo di vita e faccia sì che sei milioni di
nostri assassini, e lì tutte nude, in come attraversavo quella sala: il persone non siano morte invano
fila indiana, dovevamo attraver- cuore mi batteva come un pazzo e per la sola colpa di essere nate.
sare la sala e passare attraverso io mi dicevo: “non voglio morire, Se ogni tanto qualcuno sarà can-
un’uscita obbligatoria, dove un non voglio morire…”. dela accesa e viva della memoria,
piccolo tribunale di tre persone Spero che quando nessuna delle la speranza del bene e della pace
ci guardava, come le mucche al nostre voci si alzerà a dire “Io mi sarà più forte del fanatismo e
mercato, davanti, dietro, in bocca, ricordo” ci sia qualcuno che sap- dell’odio dei nostri assassini».

THE IMPORTANCE OF “BEING A honor of those who protected the persecuted no. My mind no. Three times I passed the
LIGHTED AND LIVING CANDLE OF and those who survived. Among the latter selection in the year I spent at Auschwitz.
MEMORY”. LILIANA SEGRE AND HER there is Liliana Segre, 88, senator for life, These were selections announced, of which
TESTIMONY survivor and witness of the Auschwitz we knew the results. Here the Kapos closed
camp, which - every time she offers her us inside the barracks and then in groups
n 27 January 1945 the soldiers of precious testimony - always starts with “I they took us to the shower room, so dear
Othe Red Army to come in the largest remember ...”. She was still a child when to our murderers, and there all naked, in
concentration and Nazi extermination she was deported and tattooed on her arm single file, we had to cross the hall and go
camp in Auschwitz. The American with n. 75190: “At the age of thirteen I was through a compulsory exit, where a small
and British forces, however, in April alone with an enemy. But I found strength court of three people looked at us, like the
of the same year released Buchenwald inside me, one step in front of the other, cows at the market, in front, behind, in the
and Bergen-Belsen respectively. But without giving up, and my mind was free mouth, if we still had teeth, if we were able to
everywhere, the spectacle in the eyes of like a butterfly flying over the fence. It was work. I remember how I went through that
the liberator was brutally identical and so incredible what I had to say that for forty- room: my heart was beating like crazy and
indescribably chilling. Already in 1943 five years I was silent. Then I began to think I said to myself: “I do not want to die, I do
the Nazis had proceeded to dismantle other about it and when I became a grandmother not want to die ...”. I hope that when none of
extermination camps (Belzec, Sobibor, it was as if I had become for myself too, of our voices stand up and say “I remember”
Treblinka) in an attempt to hide evidence the girl I was: alone, desperate, miserable, there is someone who knows how to collect
of their abomination from the world. But to whom I felt the need to tell everything, this message of life and make sure that six
the world, at the end of the war, has seen making the pain of memories an instrument million people have not died unnecessarily.
where cruelty and madness can come. The of strong ethical value. I had chosen to live, If sometimes someone will be lighted and
UN chose precisely on 27 January as a to not be there, to estrange myself. My body alive candle of memory, the hope of good and
“Day of Remembrance” to commemorate was beaten and tortured, it was hungry, it peace will be stronger than the fanaticism
the victims of the Holocaust, but also in had lost weight, it was afraid. But my spirit and hatred of our murderers».

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