The Holocaust Memorial stands in the warehouses of the city’s Central Train Station. The site features a platform that between 1943 and 1945 was used to load the trains to Nazi camps, now concealed from view.
Italian Holocaust survivor and Senator for Life Liliana Segre was among those who were deported from there. Segre was only 13 when she was sent to Auschwitz with her father, who never came back.
After the war, the site was forgotten for several decades.
Segre invited Mattarella to visit the Memorial and she accompanied him in his visit, together with Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala and the president of the Memorial Roberto Jarach.
“The abyss of evil is inconceivable, and the duty of Remembrance is the basis for the future, and for coexistence in the future,” the Italian president commented after the visit, according to the Italian Jewish newspaper Pagine Ebraiche.
During his visit, Mattarella also met with two groups of schoolchildren who were visiting the memorial with their teachers.
Since its inauguration in 2013, the site was visited by over 43,000 students according to Pagine Ebraiche.
“[President Mattarella] confirmed to be a special man. I had been hoping he would visit this historical site for a while. He made me a promise and he kept it,” Segre commented.
Segre, 88, has devoted herself to promote awareness of what happened during the Holocaust for over twenty-five years.
She was appointed Senator for Life by Mattarella in January 2018.