The Italian Chamber of Deputies unanimously approved a bill to fund “Memory trips” to Nazi concentration camps for secondary school students.
The bill now returns to the upper house of the Italian Parliament for a technical correction, after which it will be given the green light.
The fund, allocated to the Ministry of Education and Merit, earmarks EUR 2 million per year for the years 2025, 2026, and 2027.
The aim is to promote and implement “initiatives that support the historical knowledge and civic awareness of new generations, so that they can understand the suffering inflicted on the Jewish people and the deportees in the Nazi camps during the Shoah,” according to the bill.
The Union of the Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI) expressed its appreciation for the Parliament’s unanimity, calling it “a sign of great responsibility,” while wishing that the same unanimity could also be reached on other crucial issues related to antisemitism and distortions of the present. UCEI thanked the Minister of Education, Giuseppe Valditara, and the Minister of Sport and Youth, Andrea Abodi.
Each year, the “Memory trips,” also known as “Memory Trains,” take hundreds of Italian high school students to Nazi extermination camps and educate them about the Holocaust. The trips are an important part of the national strategy against antisemitism recently approved by the government, the UCEI stated.
