Holocaust Remembrance Day: Noemi Di Segni’s speech at the Quirinale Palace

Below is the speech given at the Quirinale Palace by Noemi Di Segni, President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, on the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day 2026:

Mr. President Matterella, Minister Valditara
(President Meloni, President La Russa)
Dear Liliana, Sami, Edith, Emanuele
Civil, religious, military, and diplomatic authorities
Dear students and teachers, Dear guests and friends

A week ago, I picked up a stone. Small, smooth, frozen. I placed it on the snow-covered remains of the Auschwitz crematorium, with the schoolchildren beside me. I brought another with me. It was light enough for a handbag, but it weighed like a boulder. A boulder of memory of the Shoah, a burden of our thousand-year history, the weight of the moral responsibility not to forget the Shoah. A stone on which six million names are ideally engraved, which I now hold in my hand, and which is reflected in those stumbling blocks carefully placed throughout Europe and in the institutional plaques dedicated to them.
This journey of memory and warning dates back to biblical times and did not begin after the Shoah; in fact, it has become even more incisive. Let’s look at some salient passages: the first place of worship, the “house of G-d,” is precisely what Jacob defines as such upon awakening from his dream (about the ladder on which angels ascend and descend), referring to a stone he had used to lie down and sleep. In memory of the promise he had received (Genesis 28:18). The same thing happens shortly afterward when he builds a commemorative stone after changing his name from Jacob to “Israel.” This site is called “Beth El,” the house of G-d (Genesis 35:14).
And moving on to the book of Exodus (Exodus 31:18), we are shown how Moses was instructed to engrave on stone tablets the core of the instructions he received on Mount Sinai, to be addressed to Israel as it becomes a people. Those Ten Commandments form the universal and common basis of monotheistic faiths.
And then again in the first book of the prophets, we see Yehoshua (Jesus) taking twelve stones—like the tribes of Israel—after crossing the Jordan. He places them as a commemorative plaque: a warning and a reminder of the journey undertaken with the support of G-d (Gilgal). Then he too writes down the deeds and events he experienced and takes a large stone, setting it aside as a memorial.
Thus we encounter many other situations (there are over 200 concordances) that refer to this concept of a stone. in which prophets and kings place and associate a pile of stones with a commemorative function, simultaneously admonishing respect for that unique, eternal G-d, who has no physicality, and not to give in to rites and divinities made of wood or stone.
A stone is what, for us as a funeral rite, replaces a flower when we visit our loved ones in cemeteries, at the end of the Kaddish prayer, which praises the Lord, life, and peace.
How can an ordinary stone simultaneously represent the intensity of the divine, of future hope, of growing as a people, and equally that of extermination, persecution, and desperation?
Precisely in this lies the imperative of memory—remembering the one G-d, knowing the path of history, understanding the uniqueness of the Shoah. Listening, repeating to our children, writing. Day and night, not just one day a year. Not on a anniversary, but in a daily succession.
A journey of memory that touches upon civic consciousness, not just Jewish memory. Made of authentic historical sources, secretly written diaries, and courageously narrated testimonies—those of those present in this prestigious room and a few others among us—of literature, music, and poetry, to quell nightmares and restore affection to those left behind. Edith, as promised, I brought you a stone again this year. Memory of degenerated books and those burned, devising the final solution: red book incinerators.
A journey that today has become extremely difficult because the slippery rocks have become so numerous. Because the landslide that topples the boulders of this memory tied to places, to the spaces of life lived with profound (cultural-civil) identification, is not due to a natural earthquake, but to a human, moral earthquake. A collapse of knowledge and methodological and scientific rigor. A precipice we have reached again, 90 years after the passing of the racial laws in Nuremberg in 1935. Trials began eighty years ago in Nuremberg for crimes and premeditated genocide, now summarily conducted against every survivor and Jew.
We see stones of real stone, thrown at Jews and Jewish places, trampled stumbling blocks, insults to memory that leave us petrified and dismayed. Words that are milestones in our history, in the Jewish resurgence (Zionism!), those that characterize fascist persecution and Nazi extermination, which we see kicked away, overturned, and thrown back. Words that belong to the edifices of Italian democratic culture that we helped to build and erect, brick by brick, which attempts are being made to erase and demolish. That ancient wall of our tears—made of “stones that have a human heart”—freed from every event of ancient and recent history. International organizations that erect walls of silence. Ancient scriptures that predate by centuries the institutions of public law and welfare present in every legal system, read selectively and disfigured of their function. Thus we have hidden ourselves like the dove in the crevices of the rock, in the hiding place of the ravine (Song of Songs 2:14).
We try to look ahead, but behind us we hear the roar of squares and halls where anti-Semitic hatred is once again being chanted. Memorial stones for the victims of terrorism in this country have been defaced, and tombs were once again torn down the day before yesterday in the cemetery in Barcelona. Pages of history and geography that we thought were “written in stone” have been torn from books, often replaced by newspapers that rewrite them. Pages we didn’t even have time to write after October 7th before they have already been forgotten by a propagandized doctrine. The boulder of terrorism and religious fundamentalism, thought lightly of as pumice stone by distracted researchers and scholars, while the pleas for help from the Iranian streets reach us, with few shots but with horror. The debris of that avalanche is arriving here. Are you noticing?
And I turn my gaze to those who experienced Nazi-Fascist persecution, to those who survived the concentration camps—Liliana, Sami, Edith, Gilberto, the Bucci sisters, Bauer—to seek answers to my doubts. You who, like rocks, have resisted everything, what do you say to us?
On Mount Marrone, in the Abruzzo National Park, a monument was erected to the Italian Liberation Corps (CIL), the military unit organized by the Kingdom of the South to campaign to liberate our country from Nazi-Fascism alongside the Allies (and which sparked the rebirth of the Italian Army after the armistice of September 8, 1943). It is composed of twenty cubes, each named after an Italian region, as a reminder to future generations and to remember that it was from there that Italy’s reconstruction began. What unshakeable solidity do they represent today as we approach the eightieth anniversary of the birth of the Italian Republic?
In recent weeks, parliament (the Senate) has begun examining several bills on anti-Semitism, and the adoption of a basic text is expected this afternoon. We appreciate the efforts of those who have chosen to promptly and responsibly understand what is really happening, to address the avalanche that threatens even institutional buildings. To also examine—and I emphasize also—legislative interventions. I also cite a Jewish saying here, “The rock of debate” (the biblical reference to Saul’s pursuit of David, which identifies them as being on one side or the other, Book of Samuel A 23:36-37, “Sela hamachloket”) because I hope for that long-awaited, timely, and focused discussion, despite the differing viewpoints and positions that must not be entrenched.
I also thank President Meloni, the ministers directly involved, and General Angelosanto for the proposals developed, including at the government level.
I ask you: what will be defined at the end of this effort, which we hope will be collective? Will it be a cornerstone of a solid edifice capable of withstanding the social and existential challenges we are facing? Will it provide shelter from echoes of anti-Semitic hatred, strengthening and reinforcing values ​​of coexistence?
We see similar proposals in other European countries, in Australia, and in France, and clearly, the hope is for a concrete and proactive response, not only to protect Jewish communities but to preserve the nature, genesis, and rationale of the constitutional foundations.
I would like to point out that the Declaration on the Establishment of the State of Israel of May 15, 1948, similarly to Article 3 of our Constitution, emphasizes that it is founded on the principles of equality, religious freedom, conscience, culture, and education, preserving the sacred places of all faiths. It contains no words of vengeance, war, or closure. It invites and calls upon all inhabitants of the State to participate in building its institutions. It extends a hand to neighboring countries and peoples to collaborate—with the Jewish people—in the effort to advance the Middle East. And for strength and inspiration, it invokes the support of God (as Jacob did millennia ago), called “Zur Israel.” Relying precisely on that ancient concept of rock, resistant and solid.
I turn to you young people to invite you to gather your stone of memory, not the philosopher’s stone, the stone of your human, not artificial, intelligence. Position it well, preserve it, do not let anyone trample on it; ensure that, once placed together, they form a path on which to walk with those who accompany you and join you, and let it be illuminated by those who walked on those stones and left their name there.

Noemi Di Segni, President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities.
On the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day – Quirinale, January 27, 2026