2023-05-08 18:42:43
“We must never forget the past if we want to build a better future. I have been traveling around Italy for 60 years to tell young people about my experience and the young people, despite the great effort I put in, repay me with their letters, with their attention , consideration and understanding”. This was stated by the Jewish writer of Hungarian origin Edith Bruck, 92, who survived deportation to the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen, speaking to journalists in Florence this afternoon, on the occasion of a conference in her honor at the University, coordinated by the emeritus professor of Hebrew Ida Zatelli and organized by the Department of Education, Languages, Interculture, Literature and Psychology of the University and by the Il Fiore Foundation.
“We must go ahead, always tell what happened in the tragic years of the Second World War – added Bruck – to also combat the danger of mystifications of history. The new generations need to know history and must be warned about what it was fascism and Nazism and then on the dangers of racism which continues to be present even today”.
Edith Bruck explained that she “bears witness to what the Shoah was even for those who no longer exist. My commitment is a moral duty towards those who no longer exist. It is not possible to get rid of what one has experienced and perhaps we don’t even need to free ourselves but to live together, to tell and bear witness to what has happened so that it does not repeat itself”.
The conference entitled “For Edith Bruck. Witness of the Shoah and writer” analyzed in its entirety the work of the Hungarian writer who moved to Italy in the 1950s, placing the emphasis on some of her works and, more generally, on the profile of a personality who has placed civil commitment and the duty to remember at the center of his activity.
The meeting was attended, among others, by the director Alessandra Petrucci, the director of the Department Vanna Boffo, the regional councilor Alessandra Nardini, the regional consultant for Memory policies Ugo Caffaz, the president of the Jewish Community Enrico Fink.
During the initiative, sponsored by the Tuscany Region, the Jewish Community of Florence and the Jewish-Christian Friendship of Florence, the rector Petrucci presented Bruck with a medal specially created for the University by the sculptor Sauro Cavallini.
Before going to the university, Edith Bruck was received in Palazzo Vecchio by the mayor Dario Nardella. “Embracing the world by fighting against hatred: it is Edith Bruck’s way of life, a great writer and tireless witness to the horrors of the Shoah,” wrote Nardella on her social networks by posting a photo together with the Holocaust survivor.
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