Auschwitz survivors throughout the world are filled with outrage, sadness and empathy by the upsurge of anti-Semitic hatred that is being directed against their 89-year-old Italian fellow sufferer on a daily basis. As a result of this situation, Liliana Segre is now receiving police protection.

In Berlin Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee stressed:

“Liliana Segre was 14 years old when she was deported to Auschwitz. It is utterly scandalous that an 89-year-old Auschwitz survivor needs police protection from the anti-Semitic hatred with which she is being threatened on a daily basis. But the situation is not only scandalous for Italy; it applies to the whole of Europe. In Italy Matteo Salvini is primarily responsible for poisoning the climate in society and making hatred part of an everyday toxic atmosphere. This increase in hatred is not restricted to Italy alone. Salvini has likeminded friends everywhere in Europe, and everywhere in Europe Holocaust survivors are suffering under the weight of increasing right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic manifestations of hatred. After Auschwitz, the survivors always believed that this kind of development would be impossible.”