ROME (AP) – The attempt by an Italian Holocaust survivor to encourage other older adults to receive the anti-COVID-19 vaccine has sparked a flurry of anti-Semitic remarks and other informative on social media.
Liliana Segre (90) received the first of the two-legged series in Milan on Thursday. She urged people reaching her age “not to be afraid and to take the vaccine.”
“I’m not afraid of the vaccine, I’m afraid of the disease,” Segre remarks.
After Segre’s comments received negative attention on social media, Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese expressed solidarity with her and described the ‘new and unacceptable attack’, which he said was characterized by ‘a very dangerous mix of hatred, violence and racism ”.
Segre publicly bared a shoulder to receive her vaccine injection in a hospital on the first day when Milan began administering the shots to residents 80 years and older. She said she believes those who refuse to be vaccinated are “too scared or not informed enough.”
“As a 90-year-old grandmother, I therefore tell my ‘brothers’ and’ sisters’ who are reaching this age not to be afraid and to take the vaccine, ‘she said.
Segre wins one of Italy’s highest honors. In 2018, President Sergio Mattarella made her a lifelong senator to pay tribute to her years of talking about the Holocaust with Italian schoolchildren in classrooms across the country.
When German troops occupied Italy during World War II, many members of Italy’s small Jewish minority were deported to Rome and elsewhere for deportation.
Segre was one of the few Italian children who survived deportation to a Nazi death camp. She and her family hid after the regime of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini enacted anti-Jewish laws, but was arrested in 1943 and put on trains departing from Milan for Nazi-run camps.
The racist laws of 1938 directed at Jews were abolished with Mussolini’s death in 1945.
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This version has been corrected to indicate that Segre’s first name is Liliana, not Lilian.