ROME (AP) – An Italian Holocaust survivor’s attempt to encourage other older adults to get the anti-COVID-19 vaccine has sparked a wave of anti-Semitic comments and other swear words on social media.
Liliana Segre, 90, received the first series of two injections in Milan on Thursday. She urged people reaching her age “not to be afraid and to take the vaccine.”
“I am not afraid of the vaccine, I am afraid of the disease,” Segre noted.
After Segre’s comments received negative social media attention, Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese showed his solidarity with her, denouncing the “new and unacceptable attack” that he said was characterized by “a very dangerous mix of hatred,” violence and racism “.
Segre publicly bared a shoulder to receive her vaccine injection at a hospital on the first day Milan began giving the injections to residents 80 and older. She said she believed those who refuse to get vaccinated are “either too scared or not sufficiently informed.”
“So, as a 90-year-old grandmother, I say to my ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ who reach this age to not be afraid and take the vaccine,” she said.
Segre has one of the highest awards in Italy. In 2018, President Sergio Mattarella made her a senator for life in tribute to her years of speaking about the Holocaust with Italian school children in classrooms across the country.
When German forces occupied Italy during World War II, many of the members of Italy’s small Jewish minority in Rome and elsewhere were rounded up for deportation.
Segre was one of the few Italian children to survive deportation to a Nazi death camp. She and her family went into hiding after the regime of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini introduced anti-Jewish laws, but were arrested in 1943 and put on trains from Milan to the Nazi-run camps.
The 1938 racist laws against Jews were abolished with Mussolini’s death in 1945.
This version has been corrected to show that Segre’s first name is Liliana, not Lilian.