By CHES Director Kara Goodwin
The Embassy of Italy, in cooperation with CHES, hosted the North American premiere of the film, Liliana, with special guest, film director Ruggero Gabbai, on Sunday, February 2nd, on the Canadian Museum of History’s big screen.
Liliana tells the story of Lilana Segre, a Holocaust survivor who was sent to Auschwitz from Milan as young girl. In 1938, she was expelled from school because she was Jewish. She was arrested with her father and loaded onto a freight wagon headed to Auschwitz-Birkenau where her father and paternal grandparents were murdered; she managed to survive and return to Italy. Liliana kept the trauma of the experience to herself for many decades until deciding to talk about it publicly.
Using Liliana’s testimony, modern-day interviews, and interviews with her three children, the film paints a picture of how the Holocaust impacted her and her family. The film follows her life from the darkest time of her childhood under the Nazi occupation, deportation, and indifference of her fellow citizens to how as an adult she healed her trauma by opening up and sharing her story.
Today, at 95 years old, Liliana Segre is a renowned educator and Human Rights advocate in Italy and as well as a much-loved public figure and senator.
Liliana alternates between three temporal planes: the years of the Racial Laws, the World War II, and Auschwitz; Segre’s first testimony in the nineties; and finally, the present, which investigates the relationship between survivors and their children. For the first time, Liliana’s children and grandchildren also appear and testify. Her story emphasizes how “memory is courage” — the courage to bear witness honestly and tell the truth without rhetoric.
In 2018, Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella appointed Lilana as senator for life for her “social service” as a survivor who has shared her story and impacted so many Italians. As senator, she has committed herself to combat intolerance, racism, and antisemitism. She is also one of the founders of the Shoah Memorial in Milan.
Generational trauma is a key aspect of the film as the audience learns how each of Liliana’s children came to know about her past. Her daughter specifically recalls feeling that when she learned of her mother’s experiences, she began to take this pain on herself. In contrast, Liliana’s grandchildren have an uncomplicated relationship with the past having travelled to Germany for a vacation. Liliana’s daughter admits that that would have been unthinkable for her.
CHES was pleased that so many members of our next generation program, Through Their Eyes, joined us for this viewing. After the film, University of Ottawa professor Dr. Costanza Musu led a discussion with director Gabbai who discussed how the film was received in Italy with a great deal of support despite the pressures of antisemitism since October 7th, 2023.
Liliana is not the first Holocaust film by the acclaimed Milanese director, who has numerous films to his credit, including Memoria.
If you missed the film, you can watch this interview with Gabbai from the film preview in Los Angeles at the Italian Cultural Institute on February 4th: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYU2P3J6KF8