Middle Schoolers Commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day by Reading Names at the Italian Consulate

To mark the 81st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on Holocaust Remembrance Day, five Ramaz Middle Schoolers stood inside the Italian Consulate, reading the names of nearly 8,000 Italian Jews murdered in the Holocaust. By reading the names aloud, the students helped memorialize the 9,700 Jewish men, women, and children who were deported from Italy and the Italian territories between 1943 and 1945. Before heading to the consulate, Ramaz parent Dr. Isabelle Levy, adjunct assistant professor of Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, shared the history of Italy's Jews and the experiences of her great-grandfather's 102-year-old cousin Stella, an Italian Holocaust survivor, whom Dr. Levy visits weekly.

Professor Levy taught students about Fascist Italy and its Racial Laws of 1938. Stella was 15 when the Racial Laws were established. Among their many horrible rules, they prohibited Jewish children from going to school, and Dr. Levy shared with the students that for Stella, being banned from school was absolutely devastating and made her feel less than human. Stella was deported from the Italian territory of Rhodes to Auschwitz in July of 1944. She was subsequently moved to Dachau, and was finally liberated by American soldiers on April 30, 1945. Students were grateful to learn this history from Dr. Levy and to honor Holocaust Remembrance Day in such an important way.