Hundreds of runners and walkers took part in the Testimonial Race for Remembrance, Run for Memory, organized by the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities in collaboration with the Jewish communities of Vercelli, Biella and Novara.
“We are here to say ‘never again’. Remembering serves to prevent the tragedies of history from happening again”, said the former Israeli runner Shaul Ladany, just before covering the 10 kilometers of the race.
At 85 of age, Survivor of the Shoah and the Munich Massacre, he showed up with a smile at the start, lending himself to the various requests of photographs.
“The idea is that we are all part of the same society. We live and run together. Together we carry on with the Memory and the responsibility not to forget”, remarked Noemi Di Segni, the President of the Union of Jewish Communities . “We are here with Shaul Ladany to remember and to say no to distortions of memory, abuses, and comparisons with other real or invented pains”.
On the occasion, two Stolpersteine were installed in memory of Giacomo Diena e Amadio Jona. On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, stumbling stones were installed in Rome, Venice, Trieste, and elsewhere.
“In Italy, about 1500 stones have been placed in different cities”, said President of the Memorial of the Shoah in Milan Roberto Jarach. “The names they bear are a way to return their humanity to the victims of deportation, to give them life”.
An initiative of the Union of Italian Jewish youth, “Restoring the Memory”, is committed to protect these installations meant to honor individuals and groups who fell victim of the persecutions. “We clean the stones and at the same time we remember the stories of the people after whom they are named”, says David Fiorentini.
As Alberto Jona Falco, a distant relative of Amadio Jona, to whom a stumbling block was dedicated in Novara, said “this ceremony, as well as the Run For Memory, are a way to honor Liliana Segre’s message against indifference”. “Then, during the deportations, many looked away and remained indifferent. We are here to say that it will never happen again”.
