Insults and shouts against ANPI at Rome ghetto ceremony marking 1943 roundup

Shouts at the ghetto ceremony

On the morning of 16 October 2026, the annual commemoration of the roundup of Rome's Jewish ghetto turned tense, as some members of the city's Jewish community began shouting at and insulting the delegation of the ANPI, the Italian partisans' association. The cries reported included 'You have to leave', 'out, out' and 'shame on you', aimed at the delegation. Marina Pierlorenzi, the ANPI's Rome president, described her group as the target of an attack.

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

Il Giornale, which reported the most detail on the morning, wrote that the ANPI ended up abandoning the ceremony. According to the same paper, the other veterans' groups present, including the FIAP and the ANPC, were welcomed as usual, and only the ANPI met hostility.

Why the community objected

Days earlier, Victor Fadlun, president of the Rome Jewish community, had asked the ANPI to stay away from the commemoration and to leave its banners at home. Il Giornale linked that request to ANPI flags seen at protests against a bill on antisemitism, where they were displayed a few metres from flags of Hezbollah and the Iranian theocratic regime. The paper argued that the community's anger reflected the ANPI's stance toward pro-Palestinian groups.

Carmen Dal Monte, who heads the progressive Jewish community of Bologna and sits on the national board of FIEP, said the ANPI had been asked not to attend and had come anyway, provoking the indignation of those present. Her remark, made with bitter irony, was reported by Il Giornale.

I was on the side of the troublemakers who insult the ANPI.

The ANPI's reply

In a written statement reported by Rai News, the ANPI answered the request to stay away by saying it would attend. The association also recalled an episode on 25 April, when two of its members were struck by projectiles fired from an air gun by a person who reportedly described themselves as belonging to the Jewish Brigade. A legal case over that attack is under way.

The ANPI takes part with the strength of memory, of history and of the values of antifascism embodied in the democratic and republican Constitution.

The 1943 roundup

At dawn on 16 October 1943, SS troops, the Gestapo and German police, aided by Italian fascist collaborators of the Italian Social Republic, raided the Rome ghetto. Rai News reported that 1,254 people were arrested within a few hours, and that more than a thousand of them were deported to Auschwitz. Il Giornale put the number of deportees at 1,023. Only 16 people returned, 15 men and one woman, and no child came back from the deportation.

Il Giornale noted that Settimia Spizzichino, the only woman among the survivors, now has a bridge named after her, which was lit up overnight. Rai News said the official ceremony was held at Largo 16 Ottobre 1943, in the heart of the Jewish quarter, with wreaths laid and participation from city and regional institutions and representatives of the Rome Jewish community.

A book and a commemoration

On the same day, the volume 'Anni Rubati', devoted to Settimia Spizzichino, was presented at the Protomoteca of the Campidoglio. The book was written by Marco Caviglia and Miriam Spizzichino and published by Giuntina. The day's events left the ceremony's tension in place, with the official commemoration continuing alongside the public dispute over the ANPI's presence.