A generational chain in memory of Italian Jewry

Last year, on October 16, against the backdrop of the horrific October 7 attack, I, together with three generations of Italian Jews (including my father and my two daughters), participated in a March of the Living and special ceremony in Rome marking 80 years since the deportation of Italian Jews to Auschwitz.

While Italy had been ruled by Mussolini since 1922, antisemitism wasn’t a core part of his party’s policy until 1938. Then, under pressure from their German allies, the government passed antisemitic legislation prohibiting Jews from holding government jobs, removing them from positions in the mass media, and banning marriage between Jews and non-Jews. Later, in September 1943 Italy surrendered to the Allies and the Germans rounded up Jews throughout northern Italy and sent them to Auschwitz. Out of a community of 44,500, some 7,680 Italian Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

Angelo Sonino (Credit: curtesy)

One of the victims was my great-grandfather, Angelo Sonnino, who made a living selling souvenirs. In 1943 he was captured at his souvenir stand in Piazza Venezia, and sent to Auschwitz, where he was murdered on January 6, the same day I was born four decades later. His daughter Silvana worked at a restaurant in the Termini train station, where she met her husband, David Yakin, who was part of the Jewish Brigade who came to free Europe from the Nazis. They married in January 1945 at the Jewish synagogue in Rome and when the war ended, they made Aliyah to Israel, to build the Jewish homeland after the Holocaust.

It was very moving to participate with three generations of Jews in a place where the Nazis intended to end the life of my family and the Jewish people, in the presence of the President of the Republic of Italy, Sergio Mattarella; the Mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri; and members of the local Jewish and Christian community. The march ended in Rome’s Great Synagogue, where our family life begun.

When I was 12 years old, I travelled to Rome with my grandmother to bear witness to our family history. The synagogue was the first place we visited. I was so fortunate to be there with her. Four decades later, marching in Rome with both my father and my daughters (aged 11 and 13) and seeing key waypoints in my grandmother’s life before and during the Holocaust, was extremely moving for me. It was even more special to be there on behalf of International March of the Living, a global educational organization that for over three decades has worked to preserve the memory of the Holocaust. By marching with my daughters, I felt I was fulfilling March of the Living’s three main missions: bearing witness through remembering “by foot” the places where our painful history took place; passing the torch of memory and responsibility from Holocaust survivors to the fourth generation, and confronting contemporary antisemitism, especially after the October 7 massacre, the largest and cruelest pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust.

March of the Living UK students with Holocaust survivor Harry Olmer at Auschwitz (Credit: Sam Churchill).

The march was more impactful on my daughters than any classroom lesson. It transformed history into something meaningful and relevant to them. It reminded them of my late grandmother’s stories; being present at the places she described made them feel closer to her and their family’s history. Cold and clinical words like “ghetto,” “transports,” and “persecution” became close and real to them. They have now seen from up close the places they had previously only heard or read about. They were so fortunate to hear these stories from my grandmother before she passed away; sadly, their children will not have the same opportunity. There is no doubt in my mind, though, that after listening to her and now walking in her footsteps, they are now living witnesses to our family’s story and that they will tell our story to the next generation.

March of the Living provides these experiences to many young people aged 17-18, who embark on a journey to learn about the Holocaust in Europe and the resurrection of Jewish life in Israel. On the trip, they learn about a thousand years of Jewish life in Europe, and about the persecution and extermination during the Holocaust. They visit synagogues and cemeteries, former cultural establishments, the ghettoes and camps, all alongside Holocaust survivors, so they can learn from a firsthand witness and “by foot” – creating a new generation of witnesses.

At March of the Living we have created over 300,000 new witnesses to safeguard Shoah memory. The words of the late Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel – “when you listen to a witness you become a witness” – are now a living reality. The more time passes, the more we need to learn about the Holocaust and its lessons. When antisemitism is rising and attempts to deny or distort the Holocaust are on the rise, an educational project like March of the Living is more important than ever.