Liliana Segre: “My moral heritage to speak of love and not of revenge”

“When I became, after 45 years of silence, a witness to the Shoah – I would rather never use the term ‘holocaust’ which seems like a sacrifice dedicated to someone while it was the height of the abomination – I was 60, about 30 years ago. I became a grandmother and was able to speak to thousands of students without ever using the word ‘hate’. Without ever using the word revenge ». Thus the senator for life and president of the parliamentary commission on hate crimes Liliana Segre, who presented the results of the investigation into the phenomenon to the Senate. “I am very happy that there is this Commission, because it seems to me that I must leave this moral legacy: never talk about hatred and revenge and talk about love”. Liliana Segre, president of the Commission on Hate Crimes, intervenes in the Senate, leaving aside the written text. She speaks off the cuff, often returning to link her dramatic experience as a Jewish child at the center of hate speech following the racial laws set up by fascism in ’38. Many references and the warning that “hate crimes are born with words” such as “when as a child” they told me you die “and then there was the Shoah”. A testimony that makes her leave aside the prepared text. Which still filters on the journalists’ desk.