Homage to Raoul Wallenberg is paid by a Hungarian-Italian-Israeli-Swedish program in Italy in October, at the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Swedish diplomat. The cities of Rome and Padua are two venues of the program, titled Remembering the Righteous Among the Nations.
The events, running from 3 to 31 October, are organized by the Italian capital, the Jewish community of Rome, the University of Padua, the Embassies of Hungary, Israel and Sweden in Italy and the Balassi Institute – Hungarian Academy in Rome. The first element of the program took place at the Ara Pacis Museum, sheltering the Altar to Piece erected by Augustus. Historians and Holocaust survivors presented the life and actions of Raoul Wallenberg, illustrated also by a Swedish-Hungarian exhibition at the same venue, to students from Rome, visiting annually the extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Gianni Alemanno, the mayor of Rome, Andrea Riccardi, Minister for International Cooperation and founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio, as well as Ambassadors Naor Gilon of Israel, Ruth Jacoby of Sweden and János Balla of Hungary took place at the formal ceremony. At the subsequent discussion panelists Ricardo Pacifici, chairman of the Jewish community in Rome, Naomi Gur, survivor rescued by Wallenberg, Massimo Pezzetti, director of the Shoah Museum in Rome and Gergely Prőhle, deputy state secretary of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs elaborated the topic.
Every Wednesday during October, the Hungarian Academy in Rome screens Hungarian and international movies dealing with Wallenberg. On October 25 ad 26, the University of Padua in cooperation with the Hungarian Academy in Rome stages an international conference titled Giorgio Perlasca and Raoul Wallenberg: Remembering.
Source: MTI