"On October 16, 1943, one of the most heinous crimes that Italian history has ever known took place", "an atrocity that has forever marked the history of the Italian people and that must serve as a warning so that nothing similar can happen again, even in other guises". Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni received yesterday at Palazzo Chigi the President of the Jewish Community of Rome, Victor Fadlun, to commemorate the tragedy of the Ghetto roundup, which took place eighty years ago. October 16, 1943 was a Saturday, a day of rest for Jews who were also preparing to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot. That day was chosen on purpose by the Nazis to surprise families in their homes at dawn. From 5:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. more than 1,200 Jews were arrested. Deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, they were the first 1,022 Italian Jews to arrive. Two hundred of them were children. In 1945, at the end of the war, only 16 of that convoy returned alive. "An atrocity that forever marked the history of the Italian people and that must serve as a warning so that nothing similar can happen again, even in other guises. On this day we renew our commitment to keep alive the memory of those terrible events and to fight, in all its forms, new and old, the virus of anti-Semitism," Meloni again emphasizes, who in her words highlights how the celebration of this anniversary is intertwined with the tragic events taking place in the Middle East: "Today more than ever, following the terrible attack by Hamas, we reiterate our solidarity with the entire people of Israel, wounded again by anti-Semitic hatred".
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