Since the end of World War II, non-Jewish and Jewish historians, survivors, writers, poets, moviemakers and musicians have all contributed to preserve the memory of the Fasci-Nazist persecutions against the Jews of Europe. They kept the memory of Holocaustum alive in people's minds for several generations up to these days. They did it in the most creative ways, through books, videos,paintings, films, conferences and seminaries.

 
In occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27),  the Primo Levi Center, located at the Center for Jewish History in NYC,  will host a reading from the book "Il Libro della Shoah Italiana"  (The Book of the Italian Shoah), a work edited by Marcello Pezzetti with the contribution of the CDEC Foundation - Fondazione Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea (Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation).
 
Pezzetti's project is a collection of stories of over a hundred Italian Jews who report memories of their daily life, family, jobs and relationships before the deportation. They also report on their personal experiences during the war,  on the circumstances of their deportation to Auschwitz or on how they miraculously survived living the country and, most importantly, on  how they managed to go back to a normal life afterwards.
 
More or less 9000 people were deported from the main Italian cities. On January 27 Robert Zukerman and Antoinette La Vecchia [2] will read some of their stories accompanied by the music of Steve Elson [3], an extremely talented multi-instrumentalist musician and composer who during his career collaborated with famous artists, like David Bowie, and received various music awards.
 
 Coming from two different walks of life, the two artists will offer the audience a rich, and moving performance.
 
 

The well-versed actor Zukerman is the Theatre Program Director for the New York State Council on the Arts [4].
 

He is not new to the Primo Levi Center, having already performed in those venues works by  Karl Kraus, James Joyce, Joseph Heller and others.

The Italian American actress Antoinette la Vecchia is currently performing on Broadway  in "A view from the Bridge" (starring Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson) and is famous for her one-woman show “How to be a good Italian daugher (in spite of myself)", a work widely praised by the critics.

The two recently shared the stage for Howard Baker’s The Europeans [5] at the Atlantic Second Stage.

 
The event at the Primo Levi Center will follow the reading of the names of the Jews deported from Italy and the occupied territories, at the Consulate General of Italy (9AM-4PM).

In Italy, the country where fascism was born, we have a particular relation with the Holocaust, but as a turning point in history it belongs to everybody in the world. It is a part of humanity.

(Roberto Benigni)

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January 27, 6:00 pm

READING TESTIMONIES

Center for Jewish History

15 West 16th Street, NYC

Reading from "Il Libro della Shoah Italiana"

Edited by Marcello Pezzetti