Remembrance Day 2025 Commemoration in Miami Highlights Primo Levi’s Legacy

Miami: The Remembrance Day commemoration organised by the Consulate General of Italy in Miami and the Italian Cultural Institute in collaboration with the American Jewish Committee of South Florida was well attended. The event, which was also intended as a tribute to the work of the great Italian writer Primo Levi, offered an opportunity for profound reflection on the moral legacy of the Shoah, involving the Italian community and representatives of Florida’s large Jewish community, among the largest in the United States.

According to Ansa News Agency, the programme opened with the presentation of the American edition of Primo Levi’s ‘Complete Works’, edited by writer Ann Goldstein, who spoke on the occasion, and published with the support of the Farnesina. To bring Primo Levi’s words to life, actor Lorenzo Patan¨ recited, in English and Italian, some passages from “If This is a Man” and “The Truce”.

Representatives from research centres at the University of Miami, Jewish community associations, and AJC-affiliated organisations spoke on the topic of passing on the legacy of the Shoah to future generations. Stephanie Rose, co-founder of the 3G Miami Organisation, which brings together the grandchildren (third generation) of Holocaust survivors, engaged in dialogue with Miriam Klein Kassenoff, a survivor of the extermination in Slovakia and a respected Yad Vashem scholar. Journalist and filmmaker Leslie Benitah presented short video excerpts from her documentary “The Last Ones”, which gathers the voices of the last survivors of the Holocaust who are still alive.

In closing, Rabbi Julie Jacobs from the Center for Jewish Life at Beth David gathered the audience in a moment of reflection and spirituality, reaffirming the shared responsibility of perpetuating remembrance, so that the absolute evil of history does not happen again. The audience included two Holocaust survivors and many descendants of victims.