A Holocaust artwork vandalized in an antisemitic attack in Italy went on display Tuesday at the Museum of the Shoah in Rome.
The mural, “The Star of David” Edith Bruck, depicts the Hungarian-born writer and Holocaust survivor Edith Bruck in the striped uniform of deportees in Nazi concentration camps while proudly holding the flag of Israel. It will become part of the museum’s permanent collection, alongside another piece by the same artist, aptly named “Anti-Semitism, History Repeating.”
“The mural must live because it was vandalized, and so it will live, and everything related to memory and what I have personally experienced must live,” the 93-year-old Bruck said at the Tuesday inauguration event.
The mural, designed by the contemporary Italian artist aleXsandro Palombo, was vandalized in January around International Holocaust Remembrance Day while on display in Milan.
“Today, we are here to reiterate that memory cannot be erased, neither by paint nor by the hatred of those who attempt to rewrite history,” said museum president Mario Venezia. “We will continue to defend it, to honor the survivors and for all new generations who believe in the value of knowledge and respect.”