Dear friends,
I am grateful to you for having given birth to this effective "historical accountability". Remembering places of culture has a double value. Remembering means immunizing yourself against the worst pandemic, the one that has plagued the world with hatred and intolerance.
In 1938 I was eight years old, and I was expelled from public school in Milan. The enactment of racist laws was a deep wound and a betrayal.
Obedience is no longer a virtue, it would have been said a few years later. Then all (or almost) obeyed, zealously. The academic world did not react. I can say that from an ideal place for promotion, a meeting of cultures, training, education for research, the cathedral of inclusion par excellence has shamefully transformed into the factory of inequalities by elevating the betrayal of its founding mission into a system. This was the Italian University!
As a woman of peace, I remind you and myself that we must always be vigilant. Primo Levi said: "Be careful, because it happened and it can happen again".
A warm greeting and good memory to all.
Liliana Segre
"President of the Extraordinary Commission for the fight against intolerance, racism, anti-Semitism and incitement to hatred and violence"
