If I am only for myself, who am I?

Presented by NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò, CUNY Calandra Institute, and Centro Primo Levi. Keynote by Andrea Fiano. Conversation with Stefano Albertini, Alessandro Cassin, Anthony Tamburri, and Natalia Indrimi.

Twenty-six years ago, the Italian, French, and German governments established the commemoration of January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Army, which became known in Italy as Giorno della Memoria. In New York, the Consulate General of Italy began to mark the date jointly with Centro Primo Levi, NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò, the Calandra Institute, the Italian Academy at Columbia University, and the Scuola d’Italia. Five years later, the UN followed, and the observance became widespread.

Since then, the world has changed profoundly, and the arduous task of bringing the Nazi-Fascist extermination to the surface of public memory has led to the development of a vast research field, educational projects, and public ceremonies. Whereas for many years, the mention of the concentration camps was met by suspicion and unease, today, what came to be known as “the Holocaust” (through a 1978 American TV series) is an ubiquitous reference in public life, treated as a brand, a political and legal instrument, an ethical measure, a and an epistemological model.

Based on the experience of the past two decades, our institutions are coming together to talk about how we imagine the history of the Nazi and Fascist extermination being recounted to future generations, what we have learned from this work, and how it transformed our perception and perspectives. In the face of ever more perfected assaults on humanity, and observing the growing display of what Primo Levi described as “pitiful relics” in fancy “museums” and “freshly painted barracks,” we have decided to convene and begin to work on a film that will address these experience and seek a path beyond the production of literal clones of the past and a culture that glorifies them.

Primo Levi warned us that we should not attempt to comprehend the loopholes of evil if not at the risk of falling into them. He told us that the labor of knowledge is slow and tentative, and needs failure and dialogue. That consciences can time and again be seduced and blinded, including ours. Thirty-nine years after his death, we continue to reflect on the challenges and dilemmas he articulated.

Join our conversation, whose title is the middle verse of a much-cited proverb attributed to the Babylonian Hebrew sage Hillel the Elder: If I am only for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?

Frans Krajcberg, Meeting the tree again, 1970