93: Liliana Segre

 Liliana Segre

(Liliana Segre and her Father Alberto in the 1930s.)

Liliana Segre was born on September 10, 1930 in Milan, Italy.

Her Mother died when she was 1 year old.

in 1938 Segre was expelled from her Elementary School after the promulgation of the Italian Racial Laws.

On December 10, 1943 she tried to flee Italy for Switzerland with her Father, but the Swiss Authorities refused to let them into Switzerland so they returned home.

On December 11, 1943 she was arrested and kept in several Fascist Prisons and Camps in Italy until January 30, 1944 when she was 13 years old, she was deported from Milan Central Station to the Auschwitz Death Camp in German-Occupied Poland.

(Liliana Segre at the age of 13 in 1943, a few months before her arrest.)

She never saw her Father again. He was murdered by the Germans on April 27, 1945.

At the Selection, Segre was tattooed with the Number 75190.

 She was employed in Forced Labor in the Union Ammunition Factory, which belonged to Siemens, for one year.

 During her imprisonment, she survived 2 other Selections.

In January 1945, after the evacuation of the Camp, she was sent on a Death March towards Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in Germany.

 After some weeks spent there in terrible conditions, she was marched on to its Satellite Malchow Concentration Camp where she was liberated by the Red Army on May 1, 1945 when she was 14 years old.

Out of the 776 Italian Children aged 14 or younger who were deported to the Auschwitz Death Camo only 35 survived.

(Alfredo Belli Paci and Lilana Segre.)

Segre went back to Italy where she lived with her Maternal Grandparents (the only Family who survived the Holocaust.)

In 1951 she married Alfredo Belli Paci, a Catholic Political Prisoner who had also survived the Nazi Concentration Camps. They had 3 Children.

After decades of silence, in the 1990s she started to speak to the public, especially Young Students, about her experience during the Holocaust.

Her Husband died in 2007.

(Liliana Segre in 2018.)

On January 19, 2018, the 80th Anniversary of the Italian Racial Laws, the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, on the basis of Article 59 Subsection 2 of the Italian Constitution, appointed Segre as Senator For Life for Outstanding Patriotic Merits in the Social Field.

Liliana Segre turns 93 years old today (September 10, 2024.)