At every commemorative day, whether technological or otherwise (think of World Password Day), the feeling is of being faced with an opportunity and a risk.
The opportunity is that given by the celebration itself, which sharpens our attention on a problem or fact. The risk is that, once the day has passed, one will go back to acting incorrectly (and it is no coincidence, to stay on the topic of passwords, still today one of the most used is 123456).
Imagine how much this is worth for a day like today: January 27th is in fact celebrated as Remembrance Day, to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust.
E every year this date imposes some reflections, even more urgent now that our life is moving more and more from the real world to the virtual one.
Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day has been celebrated every year on January 27 since 2005.
It was then that, on November 1st, the United Nations Assembly established the international day to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. January 27 is not a random date: on that day, in 1945, the Red Army troops liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Remembrance Day in Italy
Actually, In our country, Remembrance Day was institutionalized as early as 2000, with Law 211 of 20 July. Which in the first article explains the purposes of the celebration.
The objective is “to remember the Shoah (extermination of the Jewish people), the racial laws, the Italian persecution of Jewish citizens, the Italians who suffered deportation, imprisonment, death, as well as those who, even in different camps and deployments, they are opposed to the extermination project, and at the risk of their own lives they saved other lives and protected the persecuted.”
During Remembrance Day in Italy, as in various countries, there are various events involving all categories of citizens, with particular attention paid to students.
The initiatives are supported in the second article of the Law. We must ensure that “we preserve in Italy’s future the memory of a tragic and dark period of history in our country and in Europe, and so that similar events can never happen again.”
It is a fundamental step.
Learn (and teach) tolerance
The Holocaust has been chosen as an emblem of the abyss into which man is capable of sinking, and of causing his fellow man to sink.
And if it is true that history must be taught and learned to avoid making the same mistakes already made, talking about the Holocaust (especially to younger generations) is essential to prepare them for a future of tolerance and openness to diversity.
Words that these days – with the new conflicts also geographically close to us, which show no signs of decreasing in intensity – sound almost anachronistic. And for this reason they must be reiterated with even greater firmness.
Hate online
The relevance of Remembrance Day is even more urgent today, as a new, more subtle but no less harmful form of intolerance and hatred, conveyed by social media, is spreading. The anonymity guaranteed by the network, then, frighteningly reminds us (with the obvious qualitative differences of the case) of the attitude of those who killed or trampled on the freedom of others by justifying themselves by carrying out an order given to them.
Another analogy: today as then, it is above all the weakest sections of the population that are targeted: women, disabled people, homosexuals, ethnic minorities.
Furthermore, our article written on January 27, 2023 on the occasion of last year’s Remembrance Day already sounds, in a certain sense, dated.
Because at that time, generative artificial intelligence was still in its infancy. We didn’t know its countless and fascinating possibilities. Nor did we know (think for example of deepfake) how its perverse use would be a further vehicle for the propagation of hatred.
Offer The banality of evil Publisher: FeltrinelliAuthor: Hannah Arendt, Ezio Mauro, Piero BernardiniSeries: Economic Universale. Wise men
Technology and the Holocaust
Ma new technologies can also have a positive impact on the preservation of historical memory.
In a book we recently reviewed, The end of death, the authors question the consequences of the fact that the last direct witness to the Holocaust will soon disappear. And so, beyond the fundamental presence of traditional tools (primarily books), the idea that chatbots and avatars can help bring younger generations closer to such a dark, and therefore so instructive, page of our history is suggestive. recent.
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