Holocaust Survivor Is Swept Up in Italy’s Storm of Vitriol

Anti-Semitism is deeply ingrained throughout Europe and most everywhere else across the globe. Recently in Spain we saw anti-Jewish and anti-Israel graffiti posted at train and bus stations. There were no attempts to remove it and no apologies. In the U.S. anti-Semitism is also rampant with Neo-Nazis and white supremacists encouraged by the rants from the White House. In Florida at Parkland High School where 17 students were slaughtered no one noticed that they were mostly Jewish students in a mostly Jewish high School. Of course the new governor of Florida fired the Jewish Sheriff for not doing enough to protect the students. We recall too the chants of anti-Semites in Charlottesville, carrying torches while declaring "The jews will not replace us!' and "Blood and soil", both of which are Nazi slogans of the 1930s. Don't forget the recent slaughter of 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh Synagogue. So, I am not surprised that a Holocaust survivor in Italy must be given a police escort. And I am not shocked by the tensions, the racism and overt hatred and venom directed at Jews. I am deeply troubled though by the efforts of Democrats who want to confiscate and ban firearms. And I am disgusted by the Trump administration and its treatment of minorities and immigrants. If we continue to tolerate overt and open racism and anti-Semitism we're just opening the door to more violence and bloodshed. We must express our outrage and disgust now before it is too late. Is a door knock next?

It shows you what Italy is made of today. Not much different than years ago.

I used to have a romantic view of Italy. Then, in 1990 I did a one-year internship there. I am a white male but several of my friends there were Tamil refugees. The tales they told me of mistreatment at the hands of Italians - verbal and, yes, physical - were shocking, and totally burst my bubble about “good” Italy. The “barbarization” of Italy is not a recent phenomenon. It is just coming out of the shadows more. It is all incredibly depressing. But not new. BTW: Did you know that even today in Rome, there is a 60 foot tall fascist obelisk with the word “MUSSOLINI” engraved on it. Can you imagine the post-WW2 Germans leaving standing such an object with “HITLER” inscribed on it? Italy has never reckoned with its past. This one object alone shows it. Shame on Italy.

It appears that the far right in some European countries has more influence than in others, and much more than in North America (they hardly exist in Canada). And by far right, I don't mean politicians like Trump, but those who are neo-Nazi.

I wonder how the Mayor of Verona might feel if one of the most prestigious Wine Fairs in the world were to be cancelled. Annually held during April in Verona, this Fair brings oodles of revenue to the city. I sayto the entire wine industry, boycott this Fair. Show some spine and move the event to another venue.

Nothing succeeds like dumb luck. Both of my parents were born in Lodz, Poland. Had they met in Lodz and remained there I would have been born in Lodz in 1937 and we all would have ended up in a concentration camp. Fortunately they met in Canada after they had separately emigrated to that country. Over the centuries antisemitism has been justified for different reasons; religious, social, cultural and economic. Prejudice or bigotry springs from people who need to believe that there exists a group that is inferior to themselves. Sadly, the need to condemn another another group confirms their inferiority. Perhaps, sometime in future, the need to condemn another person will vanish. We can hope.

The increase in racism, hate crimes, anti-Semitism and other beliefs based on people's ignorance of history and their failure to treat others fairly is alarming. We are witnesses to a breakdown of society. When the internet and especially Facebook became popular, I thought it would be wonderful. People around the globe would be able to talk to each other and we'd find out how much we are alike. The world would become a better place. Wow, was I idealistic! We all know what happened. Social media was weaponized by people filled with hatred and they spread disinformation and outright lies. The president himself, apparently a Twitter addict, uses his tweets to spew filth and corruption to the millions who follow him. He retweets propaganda, doctored videos, photoshopped pictures and thousands of lies. The world is going insane. Morals and values are disappearing. I've heard this before, several times in my life, but this time I'm starting to believe it's true. Have we no sense of decency? No love and respect for others? Even people who call themselves Christians openly express their disdain and yes, even hatred, for certain groups of people. Have we forgotten what our faiths taught us? What our parents taught us? Where are our consciouses? Have we no shame? This is a difficult time to be a human being. What I see happening goes against everything I know to be right. This is a war for our souls, a fight between good and evil. I hope good wins.

Another example of the legion of hate which erupts throughout the planet. The problem is 'humanity' itself which is irremediably evil. "Nothing new under the sun." Just new actors. Hate against others will constantly breakout throughout the planet. Global warming can't come soon enough to end this inhumane species which devours itself.

I saw it in graffiti and heard it in the comments of my relatives when I visited Italy 23 years ago. That was my last visit to the country of my birth.

A big thank you Liliana Segre for speaking out. It wont be long before no one will be alive that experienced concentration camps. We should never forget. Im going to Italy in Feb. We all must speak up about racism. Talk with people and tell them your experiences. I grew up with all colors of people at our dinner table. My dad was a minister and whoever came to his church he was a friend with.

It’s evident that in Italy as well in several other western countries the level of ignorance among young people is at an alarming level. Add a few demagogues ready to take advantage from those empty heads and a violent racism is ready to be accepted as the new normal.

She says the vote was "banal". It would have been banal 20-40 years ago, but not today.

I admire Ms. Segre for having the strength to protest against racism and anti-Semitism all these years after the Holocaust. It's disgraceful that there is an increase in this behavior both here in the U.S. and abroad. The human race is no longer evolving, it is going backwards, devolving.... Well, some of us are still evolving and some of us are not.....

Since the Holocaust the world has never been less safe for Jews as it is now. We thought that 'Never Again' meant just that apparently that is not so. We believed that we were safe in America and in Europe again apparently that is not the case . Since the 2007 recession it seems that Jews worldwide are once again being vilified. Politicians use anti Semitic tropes that go unnoticed such as attacking Globalists or world bankers. But the biggest threat to Jews comes from the rise once again across the US and Europe of Nationalism and its side kick Populism. The election of Trump, Johnson, Duda, Orban, and Bolosnaro, to name a few has as Senator Serge's son correctly points out unleashed a political climate where anti Semitism has become the new normal. "He worried that racists now felt liberated in a political atmosphere marked by anti-immigrant and nationalist language". American Jews share this concern, the question is how and to what degree do we respond.

A wave of ignorance is sweeping over the western world.

You can thank Trump, Bolsinaro, Johnson, Salvini, Le Pen, Orban, and their trolls for this. By not setting an example, they are deliberately increasing this kind of behavior because they know their trolls secretly love it.

I'm a brown Latina Jew. I guess Italy's off the list of safe places to visit.

Jews have always been, and will always be, the proverbial canary in the coal mine of global racism. There is no specific cause, just as there is no excuse. Commentators will point to Trump, Netanyahu, Israel, dominance of world commerce, Religious and nationalistic intolerance, liberal left wing blindness and insensitivity. There is no cause. It just is, was, and always will be. Global good will extended toward the Jewish community generated by the horrors of the Holocaust, unprecedented in world history, is wearing away rapidly as the last of the survivors die off of old age.

I have been traveling to Italy for decades and have found the hope for the return of Mussolini has never been extinguished. It is not unusual for an old fascist - having had to much to drink at dinner - to stand in a restaurant singing the "old songs" One of the key factors in Italy at least is the continued existence of the state that came into being in exchange for their support of first Mussolini and then hitler. For it's alliance with fascism the Vatican achieved statehood. The vatican approved of the final solution being satisfied that "Hitler would finish with job the catholic church started". The church should have been seized and destroyed for its hand in the horrors of WWII (and the preceding 1800 years). Now it stands as a reminder that fascism still has a home

Italy never came to terms with having started Fascism in Europe. Having helped Hitler gain power. Having helped Franco win the Spanish civil war. Having invaded Slovenia (and enforcing an ethnic cleansing solution against the local Slovenian majority). Having passed racial laws. Having invaded Greece. And finally joining Hitler in a mad invasion of the USSR and North Africa. Italy was and is deeply nationalistic, and it periodically manifests deep and ugly swings into full blown racist territory. Growing up in the north in 70 the racist animosity was mostly against Southern Italians, and of course the Roma, the perennially forgotten scapegoat. Now it is everybody who is not Italian and Catholic. You pick: "Blacks" (from anywhere), West Asians, South Asians, Eastern Europeans, and Italian Jews and Roma. Plenty voices justify the racist outbursts, like they did justify the mostly unpunished, and not held responsible for, actions that happened during Fascism.

Non-Jews are always fast to deny that anti-semitic tropes are not anti-semitic. Just as black-face is not offensive to white people who are still in favor of Jim Crow laws. There is a world-wide increase in antisemitism and love for Hitler. In many European countries, there have been cartoons with caricatures of Jews which are obviously anti-semitic but there is always someone to defend them as just a joke or not offensive when they are. Jews are always the scapegoats. If Michael Bloomberg decides to run for president you will hear the current guy in the White House trading in anti-semitic tropes, his daughter notwithstanding.

In the end, they always come for the Jews. It doesn't matter who "they" are.

The scars of history have not been able to educate many in our times. In a world of free speech and globalized communications, one would assume that people across the world would be better informed and capable of understanding the dangers of populist leaders, and groups that advocate hatred. It is with great sadness and some dread, that we therefore continue to hear the old sounds of the past coming back with new faces and chanted via new phrases. As we move forward in the democratization and globalization of information, I fear for what may come our way in terms of our general understanding and acceptance of our realities and facts.. and how these will affect our acceptance of how to move forward. Thank you Ms. Segre, for being a courageous and brave advocate of our past.

The horror of racism is everywhere. They are feeling safe to voice their hatred and emboldened to act. The internet is a means for them to connect globally. We must make the world a safe place.

When I was growing up some 50 years-ago, people used to ask, "How could such great people as the Italians or Germans allow themselves to be fooled and do such horrible things?" Since January 2017, I know now how easy it is.

Primo Levi wrote “The Drowned and The Saved,” in my opinion his most poignant and important book. It is unfortunately the most articulate work of pessimism about the human nature. Primo Levi is not too well known in this country (except for intellectual circles in big cities, universities and some Jewish households). He was a Holocaust survivor and wrote a masterpiece “If this Is A Man.” The book is a memoir. It is infinitely more powerful than Wiesel’s Night Trilogy in my opinion. The book was rejected by Einaudi, whose editor Natalia Ginzburg (brilliant writer and 100 Jewish) whose maiden name was Levi and was from Turin like Primo but not related. She regretted the decision in retrospect but she thought people did not want to read such depressing words just after the War! People want to forget and the do indeed forget. Signora Segre is from the illustrious family that produced brilliant people including Emilio who won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Shame on Italians who subject her and everyone who suffered under fascism to such inhumanity. Primo Levi, lived into an old age, having retired as a chemist and concentrating in writing. He killed himself one day by throwing himself down the staircase of the apartment building he was born and lived his whole life except for the time he spent in Auschwitz. He had decided who win between the drowned and the saved. Jean Améry, killed himself too. He was a brilliant survivor as well. We never learn.