The city of Ravenna was the scene of two memorials last week, one for the fallen soldiers of the Jewish brigade which was part of the Allied forces that fought the German army in Italy during World War II, and the other in memory of Jews and other Italians who were victims of the Holocaust or partisan fighters against the Nazis.
For the past 25 years, the Israel Embassy here, with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, has laid wreaths of blue and white flowers on the graves of Jewish soldiers from all over the world, buried in the cemetery at Ravenna. Also honored are the Italian soldiers of the Cremona and Friuli brigades — both still in existence — who fought together with the Jewish Brigade in the battle of Senio in the spring of 1945.
This year, the ceremonies outside the War Memorial in Ravenna were addressed by Eytan Ronn, Israel’s Ambassador to Italy, who is himself a veteran of the Jewish Brigade. The occasion had special significance inasmuch as it coincided with the 40th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
The “Day of Martyrs in Memory of the Holocaust and Patriotism” was organized this year, as in the past, by Raniero Ranieri, a former partisan fighter, with the participation of local authorities and soldiers of the Cremona and Friuli brigades.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
