Anpi delegation moved aside at Rome Ghetto ceremony after insults from Jewish community members

The ceremony at the Ghetto

On 16 October 2026, Rome held its annual commemoration of the 1943 roundup of Jews in the Ghetto, 83 years after the Nazi raid. During the ceremony, several members of the city's Jewish community began shouting at and insulting the delegation of Anpi, the National Association of Italian Partisans, telling its members to leave and calling them shameful. Marina Pierlorenzi, the provincial president of Anpi in Rome, said her group had been attacked and that people did not want the association in the square because they regarded it as pro-Palestinian. Before the ceremony, Jewish community president Victor Fadlun had asked Anpi not to take part, and he explained the request to reporters on the sidelines of the event. The Anpi delegation was then moved away from the ceremony space and placed behind barriers.

We asked Anpi not to attend out of respect. We have deep respect for the history of the partisan struggle, which is our history.

Fadlun's case against Anpi

Fadlun said that 5% of Italian Jews fought in the Resistance, a share he put at ten times above the national average. He faulted Anpi for its stance on Palestine and for its leniency toward pro-Palestinian rallies, and he pointed to the 25 April march, when the Jewish Brigade was pushed out of the procession. He argued that Anpi should stop acting as a political party and return to preserving the memory of the partisan resistance. Il Giornale reported that Carmen Dal Monte, president of the progressive Jewish community of Bologna, said Anpi had been asked not to attend and that its presence was judged inappropriate by those at the ceremony.

We have been attacked. They do not want Anpi, telling us that we are pro-Pal and that we cannot stand in this square.

Anpi's reply and the wider row

Anpi said its delegation stayed in the square with the other associations present and was not intimidated, adding that the abuse remained verbal thanks to the police on site. Other groups, including Aned, Fiap and the national association of war victims, showed solidarity and stood alongside the partisans. Fiap vice-president Bianca Cimiotta Lami faulted Anpi for not stepping back, saying:

The ceremony belongs above all to those who carry the deportations on their skin.

Lami said Anpi had received a message from people mourning their dead and should have respected it, and Fiap denied reports that it had left in solidarity with Anpi. She said Fiap, together with Aned's Andrea di Veroli, proposed that everyone move away and that all banners be taken down to defuse the tension. In its own statement, Anpi said it would ask Rome's mayor Roberto Gualtieri and the prefect for a meeting soon and would keep attending Resistance sites and public events, starting with 25 April. It also accused the Jewish community's leadership of struggling to reject violence and democratic methods, and it renewed its criticism of alleged Israeli war crimes in Palestine.

The 1943 roundup and its survivors

On the morning of 16 October 1943, SS troops, the Gestapo and German police, aided by Italian fascist collaborators of the Italian Social Republic, rounded up the Rome Ghetto. Rai reported that 1,254 people were arrested within a few hours, and more than 1,000 were deported to Auschwitz. Only 16 returned, 15 men and one woman, and no child came back from the deportation. Il Giornale put the number deported at 1,023. Settimia Spizzichino, the only Roman woman deported to Auschwitz who survived, is honoured with a flyover that was lit up overnight. The book Anni Rubati, by Marco Caviglia and Miriam Spizzichino and published by Giuntina, was presented at the Protomoteca on the Capitoline Hill on the day of the ceremony.