Liliana Segre

Senator for life
Liliana Segre
OMRI
Senator for Life
Assumed office
19 January 2018
Personal details
Born (1930-09-10) 10 September 1930
Milan, Kingdom of Italy
Nationality Italian
Political party Independent
Alma mater University of Trieste
University of Verona
Known for Holocaust survivor

Liliana Segre (born 10 September 1930, Milan) is an Italian senator for life named by president Sergio Mattarella on 19 January 2018.[1]

Born in a Jewish family in 1930, Segre was expelled from her school in her young age after the promulgation of Italian Racial Laws in 1938. In 1943 she was arrested with many people of her family and deported in the camp of Birkenau. After 1990 she started to speak to the public, especially the young people about her experience.

Biography

Liliana Segre and her father Alberto

Born in Milan in a Jewish family, Liliana Segre lived with her father Alberto and her paternal grandparents Giuseppe Segre and Olga Loevvy. The mother, Lucia Foligno, died when Liliana had not yet completed one year. Her family was secular, and the awareness of being Jewish came to Liliana only after the drama of the Italian Racial Laws of 1938, after which she was expelled from school.[2]

After the intensification of the persecution of the Italian Jews, her father hid her at a friends home, using false documents. On 10 December 1943, at the age of thirteen, together with her father, Liliana Segre tried to flee to Switzerland, but both were rejected by the Swiss authorities. The next day, she was arrested by fascists in Selvetta di Viggiù, Varese. After six days in prison in Varese, she was transferred to Como and finally to Milan, where she was detained for 40 days.

On 30 January 1944 Liliana Segre was deported from platform 21 of the Milan Central railway station to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where she arrived seven days later. Liliana was immediately separated from her father Alberto, whom she never saw again and who would die the following day, 27 April 1944. On the 18 May 1944 her paternal grandparents were arrested in Inverigo, in the Province of Como, and deported after a few weeks to Auschwitz, where they were also killed on their arrival on the 30 June.[2]

At the selection, Liliana Segre was tattoed with the serial number 75190. She was employed in forced labour in the Union ammunition factory, which belonged to Siemens, for about one year. During her imprisonment, she underwent three other selections. At the end of January 1945, after the evacuation of the camp, she faced the death march towards Germany.

Liliana Segre was released by the Red Army on 1 May 1945 from the Malchow concentration camp, a subfield of the concentration camp in Ravensbrück, Germany. Out of the 776 Italian children aged 14 or less who were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, only 35 survived, including Liliana.[3]

After the Nazi Holocaust, Liliana Segre move to the Marche region where she lived with her maternal grandparents, the only surviving members of her family. In 1948 Liliana met Alfredo Belli Paci, a catholic who also returned from the Nazi concentration camps for refusing to join the Italian Social Republic: the two married in 1951 and had three children.[4][5]

The testimony of imprisonment

Stolperstein for Alberto Segre, father of Liliana

For a long time, Liliana Segre never wanted to speak publicly about her experience in concentration camps. Like many Holocaust children, returning home and to a "normal" life was far from easy. Liliana Segre also remembers that she did not find in those years any ear willing to listen to her:

"Era molto difficile per i miei parenti convivere con un animale ferito come ero io: una ragazzina reduce dall’inferno, dalla quale si pretendeva docilità e rassegnazione. Imparai ben presto a tenere per me i miei ricordi tragici e la mia profonda tristezza. Nessuno mi capiva, ero io che dovevo adeguarmi ad un mondo che voleva dimenticare gli eventi dolorosi appena passati, che voleva ricominciare, avido di divertimenti e spensieratezza."[6]

It was very difficult for my relatives to live with an injured animal like I was: A little girl who came back from hell, from whom docility and resignation was demanded. Soon I learned to keep my tragic memories and deep sadness for me. Nobody understood me, I was the one who had to adapt myself to a world that wanted to forget the painful events just past, that wanted to start again, eager for fun and carefree.

It was only in the early 1990s that she decided to interrupt her silence: since then she went to school assemblies and conferences to tell young people her story, also on behalf of the millions of others who shared it with her and who have never been able to communicate it. In 1997, she was among the witnesses of the documentary film Memoria, presented at the Berlin International Film Festival.[7]

Liliana Segre in 2010s

In 2004 she was interviewed, together with Goti Herskovits Bauer and Giuliana Fiorentino Tedeschi, by Daniela Padoan in Come una rana d'inverno. Conversazioni con tre donne sopravvissute ad Auschwitz (Like a frog in winter. Conversations with three women who survived from Auschwitz). In 2005 her story was retraced with more details in a book-interview by Emanuela Zuccalà, Sopravvissuta ad Auschwitz. Liliana Segre fra le ultime testimoni della Shoah (Survived in Auschwitz. Liliana Segre among the last witnesses of the Shoah.[8]

In 2009, her voice is included in the project Racconti di chi è sopravvissuto (tales of those who have survived), a research conducted between 1995 and 2008 by Marcello Pezzetti on behalf of the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation of Milan, which led to the collection of testimonies of almost all Italian survivors from Nazi concentration camps still alive. In the same year, she participated in Moni Ovadia's film-documentary Binario 21 (Platform 21) directed by Felice Cappa, which was inspired by the poem Dos lid funem oysgehargetn yidishn folk ("The Song of the Murdered Jewish People") written by Russian poet Itzhak Katzenelson.[9]

On 27 November 2008, the University of Trieste awarded Liliana Segre with an honorary degree in Law.[10] On 15 December 2010 the University of Verona awarded her with an honorary degree in Pedagogical Sciences.[11]

Senator for life

Decree appointing Liliana Segre as Senator for life signed by the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella

On 19 January 2018, the 80th anniversary of the Italian Racial Laws, the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella, on the basis of article 59 subsection 2 of the Italian Constitution, appointed Segre as senator for life for very high merits in the social field.[12]

Segre is the fourth woman hold the position, after Camilla Ravera, Rita Levi-Montalcini, and Elena Cattaneo.

Works

  • Un infanzia perduta. Voci dalla Shoah. Testimonianze per non dimenticare. Firenze: La Nuova Italia. 1996. ISBN 882211762X.
  • Daniela Palumbo (2015). Fino a quando la mia stella brillerà. prefazione di Ferruccio De Bortoli. Piemme. ISBN 8856639491.
  • Enrico Mentana (2015). La memoria rende liberi. Milano: Rizzoli. ISBN 978-88-17-07568-8.

References

  1. ↑ Profile, corriere.it; accessed 24 March 2018.(in Italian)
  2. 1 2 Liliana Picciotto 2001
  3. ↑ Bruno Maida 2013, pp. 254 and 267
  4. ↑ Alessia Rastelli (13 August 2012). ""Mi capì vedendo il tatuaggio"". Corriere della Sera. Archived from the original on 5 February 2016. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  5. ↑ "Liliana Segre senatrice a vita, grande emozione a Pesaro/FOTO". il Resto del Carlino. 19 January 2018. Archived from the original on 19 January 2018. Retrieved 19 January 2018. Cittadia onoraria, trascorre in città molta parte delle sue vacanze e qui ha incontrato il marito
  6. ↑ Liliana Segre (1996). Un’infanzia perduta. Voci dalla Shoah testimonianze per non dimenticare. Firenze: La Nuova Italia Editrice. p. 63.
  7. ↑ "Memoria - Italy 1997 - Dir: Ruggero Gabbai". Retrieved 2018-03-27.
  8. ↑ Liliana Segre; Emanuela Zuccalà (2005). Sopravvissuta ad Auschwitz: Liliana Segre fra le ultime testimoni della Shoah (in Italian). Milan: Paoline.
  9. ↑ "Binario 21 (2009)".
  10. ↑ "Trieste: laurea "honoris causa" in Giurisprudenza a Liliana Segre". ANED. Archived from the original on 25 December 2008.
  11. ↑ "Laurea honoris causa a Liliana Segre". UniVRmagazine (in Italian). 2010-12-06.
  12. ↑ "Il Presidente Mattarella ha nominato Senatrice a vita la dottoressa Liliana Segre". Presidenza della Repubblica. 19 January 2018. Archived from the original on 19 January 2018. Retrieved 19 January 2018.

Bibliography

  • Liliana Picciotto (2001). Il libro della memoria (in Italian). Milano: Mursia.
  • Daniela Padoan (2004). Come una rana d'inverno (in Italian). Milano: Bompiani. ISBN 88-452-0117-1.
  • Sara Fantini (2005). Notizie dalla Shoah. La stampa italiana nel 1945 (in Italian). prefazione di Liliana Segre. Bologna: Edizioni Pendragon. ISBN 88-8342-403-4.
  • Emanuela Zuccalà (2005). Sopravvissuta ad Auschwitz. Liliana Segre fra le ultime testimoni della Shoah (in Italian). Milan: Paoline Editoriale Libri. ISBN 978-88-315-2769-9.
  • Marcello Pezzetti (2009). Il libro della Shoah italiana (in Italian). Torino: Einaudi.
  • Stefania Consenti (2011). Il futuro della memoria. Conversazioni con Nedo Fiano, Liliana Segre e Piero Terracina, testimoni della Shoah (in Italian). Edizioni Paoline.
  • Bruno Maida (2013). La Shoah dei bambini (in Italian). Torino: Einaudi.

See also

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