In Italy, the title “Senator for Life” is a rare honor, reserved for citizens whose contributions to the country are seen as extraordinary acts of public service. A new documentary gives audiences a totally different perspective on the term “Senator” from that in the United States, where the 100 Senators on Capitol Hill are often the source of cynicism, posturing, and squabbling.
This distinction is the focus of the new documentary “Liliana,” directed by Italian Ruggero Gabbaí. The film introduces audiences beyond Italy to why Holocaust survivor Liliana Segre’s voice carries such weight today.
“Segre is so famous in Italy because the [incumbent] President of the Country, Sergio Mattarella, decided to appoint her as a ‘Senator for Life,’ and after that, she became even more popular,” Gabbaí told The Journal after a screening of the documentary in Los Angeles. Segre was very well known for her testimony about the Holocaust but was not widely known to the general public as a political figure.
“Liliana” opens with a excerpt from the commanding speech Segre gave while accepting the Senator for Life honor in 2018: “So I’m particularly excited, considering the role on this day fate has in store for me. It is impossible for me not to feel a sort of dizziness —remembering that that same child on a day like this in 1938, dejected and lost, was forced by the racial laws to leave her primary school desk and that same person today finds herself by a strange fate at the most prestigious desk in the Senate,” Segre said.
Even before this year, Segre had been living under 24-hour security due to receiving hundreds of antisemitic threats each day and endless online vitriol. In June 2024, Segre publicly warned that the shifting political climate in Italy was emboldening extremists to openly express antisemitic views. “Will I have to be kicked out of my country again?” Segre wondered at the time. Despite the danger, Segre continued speaking out, recalling the rise of Fascism and warning against indifference to growing anti-democratic forces.
As recently as this week, after participating in Yom HaShoah ceremonies and Liberation Day events in Pesaro, Italy on April 25 — and following the national broadcast of “Liliana” — Segre faced another wave of online attacks. On April 27, Italy’s Democratic Party released a statement backing Segre, calling her “a beacon and an example against hatred and indifference.” Italian authorities are now investigating at least 86 new social media accounts tied to racist and antisemitic insults, with seven forced indictments already ordered. Judge Alberto Carboni ruled that accusing a Holocaust survivor of Nazism was “an insult to objective truth” and that online hate could not be treated as consequence-free. Meanwhile, Segre has continued public appearances, determined to uphold the memory of those lost, even as threats grow.
Born in Milan in 1930, Segre was expelled from public school at age eight under Benito Mussolini’s Racial Laws. At 13, after being rejected at the Swiss border while trying to escape, Segre was arrested and deported from Milan’s Platform 21 to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, Segre was tattooed with the number 75190 and forced into labor at an ammunition factory connected to the present-day Munich-based manufacturer Siemens. Segre survived multiple selections and death marches, eventually reaching Ravensbrück and Malchow concentration camps before liberation in May 1945. Of the 776 Italian children under age 14 who were deported to Auschwitz, only 25 survived. Segre was among them.
After the war, Segre returned to Milan and lived with maternal grandparents, the only surviving members of her family. In 1951, Segre married Alfredo Belli Paci, a former political prisoner who had been detained for resisting the Fascist regime.
For decades after the war, Segre lived in relative quiet, choosing not to speak publicly about the experiences of deportation, forced labor, torture and witnessing countless murders. In the 1990s, more than 40 years later, Segre broke her silence and began sharing testimony with students across Italy. The documentary “Liliana” draws from more than 10 hours of archival testimony recorded by Segre in 1995, interwoven with recent interviews with the director.
Later in the film, Segre is shown speaking again at the Italian Senate: “I felt this duty, but this exceptional role actually imposes on me. Not only to go every now and then — I would like to go a lot more — but my strengths are scarce, and therefore I struggle to leave my house and my habits. But above all, it gave me the possibility to leave a sign of my passage in the Senate with the commission which has my name, which is why I am now going to Rome because tomorrow there will be the first session of this new year. The commission is entitled against ‘incitement to hatred, against racism and antisemitism.’ I would like to call it ‘utopia,’” Segre said.
The urgency of sharing Segre’s story has only grown. Since the film’s release, Gabbaí said, “the situation got worse in terms of people trying to hate Segre or to speak bad about Segre.” He added that “Segre is the Simone Veil of Italy.
The documentary was screened at the Italian Cultural Institute in Westwood to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day in February. Raffaella Valentini, Consul General of Italy in Los Angeles, spoke at the event, along with Consul for Public Diplomacy and Culture Yael Eini from the Israeli Consulate. After the screening, Gabbaí participated in a conversation moderated by Hilary Helstein, Director of the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival. Notable attendees included Sassan Masserat, an Italian-American attorney honored in 2023 by the Italian Consulate as an Officer of the Order of the Italian Star for community efforts, and Siamak Kordestani, West Coast Director of ELNET-US, an organization working to strengthen ties between Europe and Israel, which opened an office in Italy in 2023.
“Tonight we come together to stand a clear and resolute message. We will not remain silent in the face of evil in any form.” – Raffaella Valentini, Consul General of Italy in Los Angeles
“Overseas is a strong sign of the relevance, our history, and for our future,” Valentini said. “Tonight we come together to stand a clear and resolute message. We will not remain silent in the face of evil in any form.”
“Liliana” is a fitting documentary to recognize and watch during the week of Yom HaShoah. Segre is still with us at age 94, yet still facing antisemitism and threats. With global attention again on Italy and the Vatican following the death of Pope Francis, the documentary helps amplify the lessons and scars of Italy’s only Holocaust survivor Senator for Life.
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