Anti-NGO graffiti projected on the
eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day on a wall of the Cestia Pyramid
and on FAO headquarters in Rome were a response to the
distortion of memory and were prompted by pain, the president of
the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), Noemi Di Segni,
said on Monday.
"Those slogans were a response to distortion.
"This is a synthesis of the messages.
"Those who wrote them want to respond to distortion", she said.
A banner screened in the night between Sunday and Monday on a
wall of the Cestia Pyramid and of the FAO building in Rome
accused NGOs including Amnesty International - misspelt as
'Amnesy' - and medical charity Emergency of hypocrisy saying
that, if Israeli planes had bombed trains going to the Auschwitz
concentration camp, they would have "sided with Hitler".
The other NGOs whose logos appeared on the banner were Doctors
Without Borders (MSF), the Red Cross and the Italian Partisans
Association ANPI.
Speaking on the sidelines of a commemoration ceremony at Portico
D'Ottavia in the heart of Rome's Jewish ghetto, Di Segni said
she believed "strong, extremely strong pain, the kind we endure
every day" had prompted someone to write the graffiti.
"It is one of the distortions of Memory to use these things on
Israel, Israelis and Jews", she said.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
