A Holocaust survivor presided over the opening of Italy’s new parliament on Thursday, less than one month after Italy elected its most right-wing coalition since the Second World War under Giorgia Meloni.
Liliana Segre, 92, opened the session in the upper chamber and formally launched the sequence of events that will bring the Brothers of Italy party, which won the most votes in Italy’s elections on September 25, to power.
The senator-for-life, and the only member of her Jewish family to survive Auschwitz concentration camp, marvelled at the symbolic value of her overseeing this historic new chapter for Italy and recalled the dangers of fascism.
“Today, I am particularly moved by the role that fate holds for me,” Ms Segre told the hushed chamber. “In this month of October, which marks the centenary of the March on Rome that began the fascist dictatorship [of Benito Mussolini], it falls to me to temporarily assume the presidency of this temple of democracy, which is the Senate of the Republic.
