27/01/2026
Many people point out to me that today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, and perhaps they do so because, knowing that I study World War II, they would expect me to contribute something on the subject.
I can already imagine that I will receive criticism, and the comment will be something like, “So, is it better to pretend nothing happened?” I do not deny the Holocaust or the Foibe massacres, to be clear, but that is not what I am addressing here.
I do not reject memory; I reject the ritual, because I feel that the ritual has lost touch with real experience and concrete responsibility. I know this is an uncomfortable position, but I also know it is a legitimate one.
I am 44 years old, and like almost all human beings alive today, I did not experience the war being referred to, nor any similar conflicts, but I have the means to visually witness what happened: atrocities committed against Jews, soldiers, and civilians.
I do not participate publicly in Holocaust Remembrance Day for two personal reasons.
The first is the political exploitation of millions of deaths, tortured for political, ambitious, and often insane purposes.
The second is that if this day is truly meant to be a “Day of Remembrance,” existing in Italy for 26 years and at the United Nations since 2005, how much longer do we need to remember not to wage war?
Unfortunately, studying this period makes it clear that once the generations who experienced those events disappear, memory—and especially the psychological experience—vanishes completely. And when that disappears, so does the perception of what World War II was.
No one who has lived through a war would consider it a solution to resolve differences or ambitions. Only a madman would propose it.
Today, in fact, we are surrounded by conflicts everywhere, started by people who have never experienced a World War, younger people who cannot have memory of the trauma it caused by living it, and therefore will never understand what they are doing, because it will always be others who go and suffer.
Unfortunately, it is not a book or a documentary that constitutes true memory, but only experience. They are not enough, and even those who protest against war do not really know what they are talking about, even if they have good intentions. Historical memory is not traumatic memory; it does not have the same power.
Human beings have waged wars periodically precisely because they do not have memory. We do not feel very different or safe as long as we are part of humanity.
It is harsh to admit, but Holocaust Remembrance Day hopes for a utopia. Perhaps we waited too long to remember that war is an atrocity—or rather, a complete nonsense. At least 60 years to have the courage to remember. This should already serve as a warning, because many of those who lived through it also wanted to forget it, and that was the first mistake… but who would dare to condemn, humanly speaking, those people for keeping their pain inside rather than making it public? Many survivors simply wanted to forget in order to survive.
Years ago, I began asking elderly people to share moments of war, and after just a few words, they would start crying. I would make them stop because the pain of making them suffer again and digging into their emotional safe was too great.
This alone is proof of what a war is, without any manifesto.
