The event organised by the Italian Cultural Institute in Prague to mark Holocaust Memorial Day was dedicated to Giorgio Perlasca and the "Righteous Among the Nations", the non-Jews who helped Jews during the years of extermination.
Introducing the story of Giorgio Perlasca, who between 1944 and 1945 saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from deportation by posing as Spanish Consul, was the director of the Institute of Culture Marialuisa Pappalardo. This was followed by the screening, reserved for some classes of the "J. Gutha-Jarkovsého" secondary school and the bilingual Czech-Italian Ustavnì high school in Prague, of the film "Perlasca - An Italian Hero" (2002), by Alberto Negrin, starring Luca Zingaretti and Amanda Sandrelli.
As the Italian Ambassador to the Czech Republic Mauro Marsili emphasised: 'Memory is one of the building blocks of individual identity and, by extension, of peoples. In its active form, it is not only remembrance of past experiences, but also conscious assumption of responsibility for future decisions. For this reason, the memory of the Shoah does not admit intermittence or amnesia, but must always remain alive and at the centre of collective reflection'.
In conclusion, Pappalardo recalled that '80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the number of survivors is getting smaller and smaller, but their voices will continue to be alive and resound loudly through all of us'
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
