‘You’re lucky you’re not soap bars’: Jews forced to leave rally marking WWII end in Italy |
Several Jews attending a rally in Milan celebrating the anniversary of Italy’s liberation from the Nazis and fascists at the end of World War II were insulted and prevented from continuing along the event’s itinerary on Saturday. Eventually, police urged them to leave for safety reasons.
“[Yesterday] marked my 50th year joining the April 25 national rally,” Emanuele Fiano, a former MP for the center-left Democratic Party and the son of an Auschwitz survivor, told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera on Sunday (in Italy, the war ended a few weeks before the official Victory Day celebrated across Europe on May 8).
“We were kicked out, I can’t describe it in any other way,” he added. “The Jewish Brigade that fought alongside the partisans against the Nazi-fascists, the ‘Left for Israel — two states for two peoples [organization], members of the Jewish community, members of the socialist Jewish scout group [Hashomer Hatzair], were all kicked out of a rally that was supposed to celebrate freedom.”
The Jewish Brigade was a group of about 5,000 Jewish soldiers, mostly from Mandatory Palestine, who volunteered to join the British Army to fight against the Nazis. The Brigade fought in Italy in the last few months of the war.
For several years, some members of the Jewish community have joined the rally under the banner of the Jewish Brigade (two vertical light blue stripes separated by a white stripe in the middle covered by a yellow Star of David).
Those marching under the Jewish Brigade symbols have regularly been targeted by pro-Palestinian........