Holocaust victims remembered in Rome 74 years after Auschwitz liberation.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January 2019 is being marked in Rome with dozens of memorial events until 1 February.

The Settimana della Memoria events are based mainly at the Casa della Memoria e della Storia, in Trastevere, which presents a free programme of films, documentaries, exhibitions, interviews, lectures, readings and book presentations.

Established in 2005 by the United Nations to commemorate the day in 1945 that the survivors of Auschwitz were liberated by the Russian army, the initiative honours the memory of the millions of Jews – but also homosexuals, Romany people and others – who suffered persecution, deportation, imprisonment and genocide.

Each January since 2010 Rome has installed a number of brass cobblestone-sized memorials commemorating victims of the Holocaust. Known as stolpersteine in German, or literally translated “stumbling stones”, the memorials are the work of Berlin artist Gunter Demnig.

The plaques are installed outside the last chosen place of residence of victims of the Holocaust, detailing their first and last names, date of birth, date and place of deportation, and date of death in a Nazi extermination camp.

On 15 and 16 January 2019 Rome installed 26 new brass cobblestone memorials to Jewish victims of the Holocaust at various locations throughout the capital, from the historic centre to the suburbs. 

Among those honoured was Dario Funaro, a 13-year-old boy who joined the partisans in their fight against advancing German troops at Porta S. Paolo on 10 September 1943.

Just over one month later, on 16 October 1943, Dario was among the 1,023 Roman Jews rounded up and deported to Auschwitz where he perished alongside his parents and seven-year-old brother.

Four memorial stones in honour of Dario and his family were installed outside their former home on Via Maiella.

Rome also replaced the 20 stolpersteine  stolen from a street in Rome's central Monti district in December.
Cover photo LaPresse.