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Rome remembers Nazi raid on Jewish Ghetto 77 years ago

By: Wanted in Rome

Date:

16 Oct, 2020

Rome commemorates deportation of Jews in 1943.

Rome's Jewish community commemorates today the 77th anniversary of the deportation of more than 1,000 of the city’s Jews to the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz.

The raid occurred at dawn on 16 October 1943, when 1,024 Roman Jews, including 200 children, were rounded up in the city’s Ghetto district and taken across the Tiber to the Collegio Militare on Via della Lungara.

Two days later they were sent to Auschwitz on a sealed train from Tiburtina station.

Rome remembers the horrors of the Holocaust

Only 16 were to make it back to Rome alive: 15 men and a woman, Settimia Spizzichino, who died in the Garbatella neighbourhood in 2000.

The stumbling stones of Jewish memorials

The white steel bridge connecting the Ostiense and Garbatella districts was named in Spizzichino's honour when it opened in 2012.

Rome remembers Nazi deportation in Quadraro

This is the first year that the anniversary occurs without any of the 16 survivors, the last of whom, Lello Di Segni, died on 26 October 2018.

Last survivor of 1943 Rome Jewish Ghetto raid dies

Photo credit: NICOLA MESSANA PHOTOS / Shutterstock.com.

Alle 5.15 del #16ottobre 1943, la deportazione degli ebrei di #Roma. Le SS catturarono casa per casa più di 1000 persone (uomini, donne e bambini) e le caricò sul convoglio con destinazione #Auschwitz. Solo 16 tornarono: una sola donna e nessun bambino. Noi non dimentichiamo. pic.twitter.com/bRA9ubOkB5
— Comunità Ebraica di Roma (@romaebraica) October 16, 2020