IL GIORNO DELLA MEMORIA

Next Sunday it will be the “Memory Day” here in Italy.

It’s the day in which we remind the atrocities that happened in the numerous European concentration camps during the World War II, paying tribute to all the innocent people who died because of men’s craziness.

Two years ago I visited the concentration camp of Auschwitz, Poland: it was devastating.

Walking through those shacks I found myself wondering different times why has the world to be this way? Why aren’t we able to learn from our mistakes?

WHY?

I guess this question will haunt me forever…

"If this is a man"
by Primo Levi

You who live safe in your warm houses;
You who find on returning in the evenin
Hot food and friendly faces: consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who knows no peace
Who fights for a bit of bread
Who dies because of a yes and because of a no

Consider if this is a woman,
Without hair and without name
Without enough strength to remember
Vacant eyes and cold womb like a frog in the winter:

Reflect on the fact that this has happened:
These words I commend to you: inscribe them on your heart
When staying at home and going out, going to bed and rising up;
Repeat them to your children:
May your house fall down, illness bar your way, your loved ones turn away from you.