On the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Consulate General of Italy, the Italian Cultural Institute and the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles organized a special commemoration ceremony that will include the reading of some of the names of the 8,000 Jews that were deported from Italy during the World War II. The reading will be followed by a screening of two short movies that recount, from different perspectives, the tragedy of the deportations in Italy.
In Return to the platform (2022, 7′) by Ruggero Gabbai, for the first time the historians of the CDEC Foundation return with Liliana Segre to the place from which she was deported to Auschwitz: Platform 21 in Milan’s train station, sadly known for being the departure point of the convoys directed to concentration camps across Europe.
“Twent Minutes” (2021 20′) by Daniele Esposito, winner of the Italian Golden Globe for best short film in 2022, portrays the tragedy of the Holocaust from the point of view of a Roman Jewish family who is forced to leave everything in just twenty minutes.
Both short films will be introduced by video-messages by their respective directors.
Date and time: January 26 2023 | 3:00 pm
Venue: Holocaust Museum Los Angeles
100 The Grove Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Twenty Minutes (2021) directed by Daniele Esposito. Starring Annabella Calabrese, Luca Paniconi, Matteo Amici, Elisa Amici, Lucia Batassa, Alfonso D’Iorio, Enrico Manes Gravina, Viola Novello.
October 16, 1943, Rome. It is early morning. Lea, waking from a nightmare, hears a knock at the door. Two German soldiers give her a leaflet: Lea and her husband Enzo have twenty minutes to leave their lives behind and follow them.
Return to the Platform (2022) by Ruggero Gabbai
In 1996, during the filming of the film Memoria, the historians of the Fondazione CDEC – Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center Foundation in Milan returned for the first time with Holocaust survivor Liliana Segre to the place from which she was deported to Auschwitz; on that occasion they discovered the functioning of the mechanism of Binario 21 at the Milan railway station. After almost thirty years, the CDEC Foundation publishes the video footage of director Ruggero Gabbai documenting that historical moment. Starting from 15 June 2022, the footage is part of the videos projected inside the Testimony Rooms of the Memorial.