On the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2025, the Italian Cultural Institute of Berlin, in collaboration with the Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin and under the patronage of the Embassy of Italy in Berlin, commemorated the tragedy of the Holocaust through the testimony of Liliana Segre, as recounted in the book “La memoria rende liberi. La vita interrotta di una bambina nella Shoah”.
A Holocaust survivor, life senator Liliana Segre has long been committed to sharing her traumatic experience to raise public awareness against intolerance, racism, and antisemitism.
The book, written in collaboration with Enrico Mentana, was published in Germany by Neofelis Verlag (translation by Ulrike Schimming) in 2024, under the title “Erinnern macht frei. Das unterbrochene Leben eines Mädchens in der Shoah”.
During the event, held at the Gemeindehaus of the Jewish Community of Berlin (Fasanenstraße), journalist and co-author Enrico Mentana engaged in a conversation with translator Ulrike Schimming. Later in the evening, actress Elettra De Salvo read excerpts from the book, while pianist Giuseppe Guarrera performed compositions by György Ligeti and Alberto Guido Fano, both musicians of Jewish origin. The photographic exhibition “Suche nach G’tt… In Auschwitz und Birkenau” by Lutz Müller-Bohlen, focused on current images of the former concentration camps, was also inaugurated in the spaces of the Jüdisches Gemeindehaus.
