Le Mémorial de la Shoah de Milano accueillant les réfugiés: le sens de l’enseignement de la Shoah

The Shoah Memorial is located in the underground area of the Milan Central Station. This was the point from where - between 1943 and 1945 - hundreds of people were deported to the Nazi extermination camps. On these premises, in June 2015, the Shoah Memorial Foundation, together with the Community of Sant’Egidio, offered hospitality each night to 50 migrants on their way to other destinations. From June to November in 2015 more than 5.000 people were welcomed and this assistance was given again in 2016 and 2017. The Shoah Memorial has created a chain of solidarity in which the humanitarian assistance shown by the volunteers for the refugees has positively ‘infected’ many others. For many Milanese, the Memorial itself, in addition to the opportunity to meet with refugees, has had an educational function which posed many questions to the Italian Jewish Community and to experts of didactic of the Shoah. According to an intercultural approach, this is also an example of how a minority group can establish a relevant space of dialogue with the city, thereby promoting a strong memory like the one of the Shoah between “old and new others”.