The coming to power in Italy of the far-right Giorgia Meloni, three years ago, marked the beginning of periodic controversies about episodes from the past, such as the resistance during the Second World War and the neo-fascist terrorism of the so-called years of lead. But in recent months, since Donald Trump’s victory in the United States, with Israel’s offensive in Gaza and in September, statements accusing the left of anti-Semitism and violent extremism have skyrocketed in the Italian Government.
The last one, however, has surpassed the previous ones. The Minister of Equal Opportunities and Family, Eugenia Maria Rocella, said on Sunday afternoon: “School trips to Auschwitz have been used to say that anti-Semitism is a fascist issue and that is enough.” And he added that we must “revise to the core everything that has happened in our past, as Germany has done.”
Roccella, of the Brothers of Italy party, Meloni’s party, spoke these words at a convention organized in Rome by the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI). His phrase is part of a reasoning in which he affirmed that anti-Semitism is also on the left, as the recent mobilizations against Israel’s offensive in Gaza would demonstrate, in his opinion. However, he pointed out that the school trips that thousands of Italian students have been taking for years to the extermination camps in Germany try to hide it, to show that anti-Semitism was only one thing “from a certain area, fascism.” That is why he wondered what these “excursions” were really for, and believes that they have been “prompted because they served the opposite, to say that anti-Semitism is something placed in history, in a distant time, in a historical past.”
Speaking of the current moment, Roccella opined that, “in the final phase of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, anti-Semitism has found a justification for its resurgence and relegitimization.” “The delight with which the word ‘genocide’ is used, throwing it in the face of those who have a well-documented and detailed experience of genocide [en alusión a los israelíes]it is truly shocking. Anti-Semitism in our country has not been fully addressed,” he concluded.
In Italy, an increase in episodes of anti-Semitism has been recorded since October 7, 2023, the day of the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel, a total of 733, as reported last week by the Ministry of the Interior, and it is a matter of debate in Italy.
The minister’s words have caused a scandal in the opposition, but above all she has highlighted the response of , 95 years old, who survived Auschwitz and represents one of the most respected voices in Italian historical memory: “I find it difficult to believe that a minister of the Republic, after having defined educational trips to Auschwitz as ‘excursions’, could have said that they have been organized to encourage anti-fascism. What would be the reaction? blame?“, he stated. And he added: “During the Second World War, throughout Europe occupied by the Axis powers, the Nazis, with the fervent collaboration of local fascists – including the Italians of the RSI [República Social Italiana, nombre del régimen fascista de Mussolini en el norte de Italia en los últimos años de la guerra]—, carried out a colossal death industry to wipe Jews, Roma, Sinti and other minorities from the face of the earth. The training of our children and grandchildren must be based on knowledge of history. The memory of the truth can only harm those who have skeletons in the closet.”
Another Auschwitz survivor, Tatiana Bucci, 88 years old and who for 40 years has accompanied Italian schoolchildren there, has also responded to Roccella saying that “he is wrong.” He believes that these visits serve “to make new generations understand what Nazi-fascism was.” “The Germans have accepted their past. We, the Italians, have not. We never will. We do not want to admit the guilt of fascism,” he replied. As for anti-Semitism, he considers that today it is also found on the left, “but I would blame Netanyahu and his ministers, they have bombed hospitals, they have killed children.” “In doing so, Netanyahu has put himself on the same level as Hamas, he charges.
The management of the Shoah Memorial in Milan has also received the minister’s words with “stupor”: “Presenting visits to these places as the result of a political design on one’s part limits, above all, the memory of the victims and represents a historical falsehood.”
The opposition has asked the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, to disavow the minister for “insulting the trips to the memory of Auschwitz and trying to rewrite history”, but the Government has remained silent. In recent weeks, the leader of the Italian right of the left, and on Friday went so far as to claim that the opposition in Italy “is more fundamentalist than Hamas” and practices “the business of hate.” In days past they also only wanted to harm their Government; and mocked the recent general strike and the demonstrations of solidarity with Palestine, saying that they were only done “to extend the weekend.”
