MEMORY AND REALITY 

What is Memory if it is not lived daily in the present? What if it does not end up embalmed in a ritual of mere remembrance, deprived of the vital force needed to remain a firm warning against a present danger, a message, a call to action? What are the many reasons why – namely – the Holocaust Remembrance Day is alive and relevant?

In the decades between the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Red Army, and January 2026 Holocaust Remembrance Day, other genocides have occurred. These, among other things—and not coincidentally—led to the establishment of the International Criminal Court, two international tribunals for the events in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, South Africa’s case against Israel before the International Court of Justice for crimes against humanity committed in Gaza, and, finally, the arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu issued by the International Criminal Court, because of those same crimes

Current events and memory, thus, are intertwined to keep the warning alive. And the fight against anti-semitism, against all forms of racial hatred, against all crimes against humanity and human dignity, becomes stronger only if the horrendous events we witness today are not minimized, are not shielded by a lack of rigorous analysis and coherent judgment. Nothing that happens today can obscure the horrendous pages of the past.

But neither the recollection of a past deeply etched in our memory can cause us to overlook the horror we can barely believe is happening today, and been recently acknowledged in 70.000 victims.

Indeed, both past and present cannot help but jointly engage us all at keeping alive the same eternaloutrage. All the wounds that make Primo Levi’s distressing comment forever relevant: “If understanding is impossible, knowing is necessary… because what has happened can happen again; because allconsciences – even our own – can once again be seduced and darkened.”