Giorno della memoria 2021

January 27, 2021 will mark twenty years since the first commemoration of Giorno della Memoria (Holocaust Remembrance Day) in Italy.

In New York, each year, the Consulate General of Italy has held the ceremony of the reading of the names of the Jews deported from Italy and the Italian territories.

This year, due to the pandemic, we will not be able to gather for this day of remembrance.
We have thus decided to share with audiences, in and beyond New York, the past ceremonies and some of the programs presented over the years by the partners in this initiative: Centro Primo Levi, the Italian Cultural Institute, NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò, the Calandra Italian American Institute at CUNY, the Italian Academy at Columbia University, and the Scuola d’Italia Guglielmo Marconi.

On January 27, from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm the YouTube platform of the Consulate General of Italy (ItalyinNY), will broadcast a series of clips from past programs that can be also viewed online in their entirety on the pages of each institution. The overview  represents a moment of reflection on what has meant to mark this date.

Program

Greetings from the Ambassador of Italy  Armando Varricchio and the Consul General of Italy Francesco Genuardi

Short film
Eight letters from Fossoli (From: Gemma Vitale Servadio, I am Counting on You, on Everyone… Eight Letters from Fossoli, CPL Editions 2014, Awen Films)

Reading
Andrea Fiano reads from the memoir of the deportation of his father, Nedo Fiano (1925-2020).

Consulate General of Italy
Film montage of the past ceremonies of the reading of the names, with the participation of the Consular Representatives of many European Nation, NYC City Officials and the spontaneous participation of regular Newyorkers.

Italian Cultural Institute
“Internee n.6” by Maria Eisenstein, 1944. A staged reading, with Katarina Vizina
“Exile and Creativity” Carlo Ginzburg in conversation with Saul Friedlander

NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò
Stefano Albertini in conversation with Natalia Indrimi
Selection of clips from past programs:
Paolo Benvenuti, Confortorio (1992)
Catherine Campbell, Jeffrey Bonna, Oro Macht Frei, (2013)
Valerio Ciriaci and Isaak J. Liptzin, Americordo (2014)
Duilio Colletti, (Lewis Gittler, Carlo Levi, Alessandro Fersen), The Earth Cries Out (1948)
The Liberation of the Concentration Camp of Ferramonti, British Army footage (1943)
Marco Bertozzi, Noa Steimatsky, The Refugees of Cinecittà (2012)
Ruggero Gabbai, The Longest Journey (2013)
Valerio Ciriaci, Isaak J. Liptzin, If Only I Were That Warrior (2015)
Primo Levi, Massimo Scaglione, Sleeping Beauty in the Fridge (1959)
Peter Stastny, Redemption Blues (2019)

Calandra Italian American Studies Institute at CUNY
Honoring War Criminals (2012) Panel discussion on the monument to Rodolfo Graziani and the memory of the massacres in Ethiopia. With Lidia Santarelli, Girma Abebe, Yemane Demissie, Andrea Fiano.

Multilanguage Reading from Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man
Clips from the complete reading of Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man, New York Public Library, Italian Cultural Institute, Centro Primo Levi (2019)

Short film
16 ottobre 1943 by Marina Piperno, text by Giacomo Debenedetti