The significance of 27 January: why we celebrate Remembrance Day
The Remembrance Day is an international day on which we remember the victims of the’Holocaust, or the extermination of millions of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, disabled people and other groups persecuted by the Nazi regime during the Second World War. The date chosen for this anniversary is 27 January, because on this date in 1945 Soviet troops liberated the concentration camp of Auschwitz, one of the most symbolic places of the Shoah.
The Remembrance Day was established by the UN General Assembly in 2005, with the aim of keeping alive the memory of what happened and promoting tolerance and education against all forms of racism and discrimination.
The 27 January was therefore symbolically chosen as Remembrance Day, to remember the millions of dead of the’Holocaust6 million Jews; 2 million Russian prisoners; 2 million non-Jewish Poles; 15,000 homosexuals; 250,000 disabled people; 500,000 Roma and Sinti; and millions of Slavs, dissidents and “undesirables” including over 8,000 Italians.
The Shoah in Ciociaria: the victims in the province of Frosinone
The province of Frosinone contributed victims to the Shoah, with many Jews from Ciociaria who lost their lives in Auschwitz.
The toll of victims was twofold, with Italian Jews from Cassino, Sora and Acuto, and also foreign Jews, mainly from Austria and Germany, but also from other eastern countries, interned in the camp of San Donato Val di Comino.
In the database of Yad Vashem and the Foundation of the Centre for Contemporary Jewish Documentation, one can find numerous families originating or residing in the province of Frosinone among the victims of Nazi ferocity.
The Jewish internees of San Donato Val di Comino
San Donato Val di Comino was a place of fascist internment, but also the municipality that housed the most Jews confined in the whole of Lazio (33rd in the whole of Italy).
The city of San Donato Val di Comino, located in a strategic geographical position during the Second World War, became a rear of the Cassino front after 8 September 1943.
Despite the help of the inhabitants, particularly the women, to hide Jews and former Allied prisoners in the mountains, on 6 April 1944, sixteen Jews were captured and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Only three of them survived: Enrico Levi, Gertrude Adler and Rosa Blody.
The network of solidarity: how the population saved the internees
The solidarity and help of the people of San Donato Val di Comino allowed some internees to escape arrest during the Second World War.
Former prisoners and Jews were hidden in country houses, cellars, rooms in the city centre and mountain shelters, such as the Jewish Cave.
Helping allies, former prisoners and Jewish internees was a widespread and spontaneous phenomenon that involved the entire country, even the fascist authorities in San Donato participated, creating false documents to save the internees.
The “Registry Girls”: the fake ID machine
The coverage of Jews during the Second World War was the work of registry office staff, including Carmela Cardarelli, Rosaria De Rubeis, Maddalena Mazzola, Pasqualina Perrella e Donato Coletti.
These employees destroyed the original identity documents of the internees and prepared new ones with Italian generalities and altered data, creating a real “machine” to cover up the presence of the Jews and keep them alive.
In 2021, Pasqualina Perrella, the last of the “registry girls”, She passed away at the age of 99. In 1944 Pasqualina was arrested by the Germans but fortunately for her there was no room in the truck where arrested Jews were deported, thus escaping deportation to Auschwitz.
