The Italian Government, in a formal note today from the Premier to the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, expressed the government’s “concern” over vandalism committed recently at the Synagogue in Genoa, and promised to try to find the vandals and prosecute them.
The act of vandalism occurred in Genoa last week, while the entire country was celebrating the tenth anniversary of the liberation of Italy from fascist rule. Hoodlums desecrated a memorial plaque at the Geneva synagogue commemorating the victims of fascism who had been deported, many of them to their deaths, during World War II, when Italian fascism teamed up with German Nazism.
Senator Carlo Calderain had presented an interrogation to the Minister of the Interior, calling the Minister’s attention to the act of vandalism and inquiring whether measures had been taken to find and punish the perpetrators. Today’s message from the Prime Minister assured the Union of Italian Jewish Communities that “the act of vandalism has offended national sentiment. Measures have been taken to attempt to identify the perpetrators of that ignoble gesture and of preventing the recurrence of similar incidents.”
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