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2025 International Holocaust Remembrance Day Commemoration

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Last night’s Holocaust Remembrance Day event, organized by Italy’s Consulate General in Miami and Italian Cultural Institute in collaboration with American Jewish Committee of South Florida, met with tremendous success. The event, which was intended also as a tribute to the work of the great Italian writer Primo Levi, offered the opportunity for a deep reflection on the moral legacy of the Shoah, involving the Italian community and representatives of Florida’s vast Jewish community, one of the largest in the United States.

The program opened with the presentation of the American edition of Primo Levi’s “Complete Works,” masterfully edited by the writer Ann Goldstein (who spoke on the occasion) and published with the support of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.  To bring Primo Levi’s succinct and powerful words to life, actor Lorenzo Patanè recited excerpts from “If This is a Man” and “The Truce” in English and Italian. The audience, which also featured two Holocaust survivors and many descendants of victims, was deeply touched, transported as it was to the raw and unfiltered reality of life in the death camps.

Representatives from University of Miami research centers, Jewish communal federations and AJC-affiliated organizations then spoke on the topic of passing on the legacy of the Holocaust to future generations:

Stephanie Rose, co-founder of the 3G Miami organization, which brings together the grandchildren (third generation) of Holocaust survivors, spoke with Miriam Klein Kassenoff, who escaped extermination as a child in Slovakia (child survivor) and is a distinguished scholar at Yad Vashem. Journalist and filmmaker Leslie Benitah presented short videos from her documentary “The Last Ones,” which brings together the voices of the last living survivors of the horrors of the Holocaust. Finally, Rabbi Julie Jacobs (Center for Jewish Life at Beth David) gathered the audience for a moment of reflection and spirituality, affirming the shared responsibility to perpetuate remembrance so that the absolute evil of history will not be repeated.