From the Liveblog of
Thursday, October 13, 2022
Holocaust survivor opens Italy’s new parliament as far-right set to take power
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ROME — Italy’s Fascist past and its future governed by a party with neo-fascist origins come to an emotional head today as a Holocaust survivor presides over the first seating of parliament since general elections last month.
Liliana Segre, a 92-year-old senator-for-life, heads the opening session of the upper chamber, subbing in for a more senior life senator who couldn’t attend. Her speech formally opens the sequence of events that is expected to bring the Brothers of Italy party, which won the most votes in the September 25 elections and which has its roots in a neo-fascist movement, to head Italy’s first far-right-led government since the end of World War II.
Speaking to the Senate, Segre marvels at the “symbolic value” of the coincidence of her role and the historic moment that Italy is witnessing. She noted that she was presiding over the Senate as Italy soon marks the 100th anniversary of the March on Rome, which brought Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini to power, and as war rages once again in Europe with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Today, I am particularly moved by the role that fate holds for me,” Segre tells the hushed chamber. “In this month of October, which marks the centenary of the March on Rome that began the Fascist dictatorship, it falls to me to temporarily assume the presidency of this temple of democracy, which is the Senate of the Republic.”
Segre was one of the few Italian children who survived deportation to a Nazi death camp, and she has spent recent decades telling Italian schoolchildren about the Holocaust. Her advocacy led Italian President Sergio Mattarella to name her a senator-for-life in 2018 as Italy marked the anniversary of the introduction of Fascist-era racial laws discriminating against Jews.
The Times of Israel Community.