Defaced Auschwitz survivor mural finds new home at Rome’s Shoah Museum

After multiple acts of vandalism, a mural of Italian Auschwitz survivors has been preserved by Rome’s Shoah Museum.

 The mural stands in the Jewish ghetto of Rome, January 30, 2025. (photo credit: Courtesy)
The mural stands in the Jewish ghetto of Rome, January 30, 2025.
(photo credit: Courtesy)

A mural depicting the last two Italian Auschwitz survivors became part of the permanent collection of the Shoah Museum in Rome after it was defaced and erased.

The mural, which was made by artist aleXsandro Palombo, depicts Holocaust survivors Liliana Segre and Sami Modiano in blue-and-grey striped clothes under green bulletproof vests with gold stars of David on them. It was defaced three times and was completely removed by vandals in Milan before the Shoah Museum acquired it.

When the mural was vandalized, perpetrators used white paint to cover the two survivors' faces and the yellow stars on their clothes. However, they left the serial numbers tattooed on Segre and Modiano's respective arms.

“They took away my face, my identity, they erased the yellow star, but they left the number tattooed on my arm,"  Segre told Italian media after the mural was defaced.

The museum added that the defacement seriously upset Modiano as well. 

 The defaced mural depiciting Auschwitz survivors Liliana Segre and Sami Modiano.  (credit: Courtesy)Enlrage image
The defaced mural depiciting Auschwitz survivors Liliana Segre and Sami Modiano. (credit: Courtesy)

Rome reacts

The artwork now stands in the middle of the historic Jewish ghetto in Rome.

Jewish community leaders said that the museum taking on the mural was a sign of resistance.

“It is our response, a symbol that comes back to life stronger than before and a wound that heals; we have not surrendered to this anti-Semitic and denialist violence; we have transformed anger into an act of beauty and resistance because memory cannot be erased," said President of the Shoah Museum in Rome Mario Venezia. 


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Italian politicians said that the mural's presence in Rome was proof of the city's fight against antisemitism.

“Having this beautiful mural here in Rome is the beginning of a new history, a tribute to the great witnesses, an act of justice, and a dutiful commitment against antisemitism," said Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri.