International Remembrance Program Series

Giorno della Memoria in New York is a collaborative initiative of the Consulate General of Italy with Centro Primo Levi, the Italian Cultural Institute, NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò, the Italian Academy at Columbia University, CUNY’s John Calandra Italian American Institute. Educational events are also held at the Scuola d’Italia Guglielmo Marconi and the Bronx High School of Science.

On January 27, 1945 the Soviet Army entered and liberated the extermination camp of Auschwitz. This date was chosen to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to promote the fight against racism and any kind of persecution. Following the efforts of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, an intergovernmental organization founded in Sweden in 1998, January 27 was established in Germany and France to remember the victims of Fascism and Nazism. In the year 2000 the Italian Parliament voted the resolution to observe January 27 as “Giorno della Memoria”. Progressively all countries of the European Union followed through. In 2006 the United Nations adopted the commemoration of January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Events in New York City

January 25 at 6:00 pm
Istituto Italiano di Cultura, 686 Park Avenue, New York
Book discussion: Primo Levi, The Friend by Bianca Guidetti Serra (CPL Editions, 2015)
Opening remarks: Giorgio Van Straten (Italian Cultural Institute)
Guri Schwarz (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa), Alessandro Cassin (Centro Primo Levi). Stella Levi (Centro Primo Levi) will read from the book.

January 26 at 6:00 pm
NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo’, 24 West 12th Street
Film Screening: Oro Macht Frei (2013) by Jeffrey Bonna and Catherine Campbell
Opening remarks: Stefano Albertini. Post screening discussion: Catherine Campbell

January 27 between 9 am and 3 pm
Consulate General of Italy, 689 Park Avenue
Ceremony. Readings of the names of the Jews deported from Italy and the Italian territories.
Opening remarks: Consul General Natalia Quintavalle and Alessandro Di Rocco (President, Centro Primo Levi)
Excerpts from Primo Levi’s writings will be read during the ceremony by guest and by the students of the Italian high school Guglielmo Marconi.

January 28 at 6:00
John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, 25 West 43rd St, 17th Floor
Book discussion. Renzo De Felice’s book The Jews in Fascist Italy (Enigma, 2006, 2015)
Frank Adler (Macalester College), Stanislao Pugliese (Hofstra University), Alexander Stille (Columbia University), Guri Schwarz (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa), Ernest Ialongo (Hostos Community College)

February 1 at 6:00
NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo’, 24 West 12th Street
Book presentation: “L’Eclisse dell’Antifascismo” (Laterza, 2015) by Manuela Consonni.
Opening remarks: Stefano Albertini and Natalia Indrimi (Centro Primo Levi)
Manuela Consonni (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Michael Livingston (Rutgers University)

February 4 at 5:30 pm
Italian Academy, Columbia University, 1161 Amsterdam Avenue
Panel: Being a Child during the Holocaust
Patricia Heberer Rice (US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC) and Emily Langer (Washington Post)

Events in other boroughs

January 24
Garibaldi-Meucci Museum, 420 Tompkins Ave, Staten Island, NY
Book presentation: The Italian Jewish Exiles in America by Gianna Pontecorboli
Speakers: Luigi Leonini and David Mercaldo (writer)

Events in other cities
Washington D.C. – January 27 at 6:00 pm
Italian Embassy, 3000 Whitehaven Street, N.W.
Panel: Primo Levi’s Complete Works. With Joan Acocella (The New Yorker) and Stefania Lucamante (Catholic University)

Boston – January 24 at 12 noon
Boston University, Photonics Building, 8 St. Mary’s St, Boston, MA
Film screening and book presentation: The Concentration Camp of Fossoli and the Deportation of Italian Jews
The Jews of Fossoli by Ruggero Gabbai and Liliana Picciotto (CDEC)
Gemma Vitale Servadio, I am Counting on You, on Everyone. Eight Letters from Fossoli (CPL Editions 2015)
With Nancy Harrowitz (Boston University), Alessandro Cassin (Centro Primo Levi) and Mirella Bedarida

Ottawa – January 27 at 6:00 pm
Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington Street Ottawa
Presented by the Italian Cultural Institute
Film screening: The Island of Roses by Rebecca Samonà
Post screening discussion