Italian mural depicting Holocaust survivors defaced in act of antisemitism.
A mural of Holocaust survivors in Italy has been defaced in a “demented act” of vandalism.
The Milanese mural by artist aleXsandro Palombo features Holocaust survivors Liliana Segre and Sami Modiano, whose faces and Stars of David were scratched out. The Auschwitz-Birkenau survivors were portrayed in striped camp uniforms and bulletproof vests.
With antisemitism on the increase in Europe, the artwork, which was displayed on September 28, sought to highlight Holocaust remembrance.
The 94-year-old Italian senator Segre was the victim of defacement shortly after a pro-Palestinian event in Milan, when some protesters called her a “Zionist agent.” Palombo created the mural in response to the rhetoric, which infuriated him.
Italian mural depicting Holocaust survivors defaced in act of antisemitism.
Italy has seen a pushback against the vandalism. The head of the Holocaust memorial museum in Italy, Mario Venezia, described it as a “demented act” that “damages walls but not history.” Piero Fassino, a representative of the Italian Democratic Party, denounced the conduct as a “cowardly assault on Holocaust memory.”
His mural portraying Vlada Patapov, the “girl in red” who survived the Hamas attack during the Nova festival on October 7, 2023, was also defaced almost immediately after being completed.
“The antisemitic fury unleashed by Hamas is overwhelming Jews in every part of the world, this horror that re-emerges from the past must make us all reflect because it undermines freedom, security and the future of us all,” Palombo told EuroNews.
“Terrorism is the very denial of humanity and has nothing to do with resistance, it uses people with aim [the] to divide and drag them into the abyss of its evil, into an infernal vortex that has no end. There can be no peace until terrorism is eradicated; [legitimizing] it means condemning to death the whole humanity,” Palombo added.
Rome’s Shoah Museum condemned the vandalism in a statement, saying “these acts not only harm art but undermine the value of Memory, which is fundamental for building a conscious and just society”.
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