Image of the Holocaust museum at Villa Torlonia, where Benito Mussolini once lived
Georgia Meloni's government approved the idea of a Holocaust museum on the grounds of his former home Benito Mussolini
The museum, which will cost €10 million (£8.7 million), will be built on the grounds of Villa Torlonia, a grand palazzo that was used by the fascist leader as his residence from 1925 until his overthrow in 1943.
The project has been discussed for more than 20 years, but Mrs. Meloni's government, the Prime Minister, finally managed to give it the green light.
The Lower House of Parliament voted unanimously to approve the project. on Wednesday.
The upper house, the Senate, has already given its approval.
In the artist's view, the museum is a cubic building with black walls on which the names of Italian Jews who died in Holocaust.
The government approved the museum just days after Italy marked the 80th anniversary of the roundup of Jews in Rome's ghetto quarter on the banks of the Tiber.
More than 1,000 Italian Jews were rounded up by SS troops. , with the complicity of Italian fascist officials, October 16, 1943.
They were sent to concentration camps. Only 16 people survived the war.
Benito Mussolini led the fascist government in Italy from 1922 to 1943. Photo: Getty Images/Topical Press Agency
The green light for the museum came just 10 days after Hamas terrorists killed about 1,300 Israelis in southern Israel in the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
Paolo Formentini, a Right League lawmaker, told parliament: “We thought that events of this kind were just a tragic memory. Instead, it is an ancient problem that reappears like a nightmare.”
Holocaust Museum approved after 20 years of bureaucratic red tape
The proposal, first mooted more than two decades ago, was mired in bureaucratic red tape and funding problems but was reintroduced by Gennaro Sangiuliano, Italy's culture minister.
He told parliament: “At a time when we remember the horrors of detention of Jews in the ghetto in Rome, the museum will finally be realized.
“This is all the more important today, in these days full of suffering, when we have witnessed the massacres carried out by Hamas in Israel.”
< p>He spoke of the “shame” of racial laws introduced by Mussolini in 1938 that discriminated against Italian Jews.
Work on the museum is scheduled to begin in a few months and be completed within three years, officials said. said.
The Holocaust Museum will be built on the grounds of Villa Torlonio, the former official residence of Benito Mussolini
Ms Meloni's Brothers of Italy party has its origins in the Italian fascist movement and has in the past expressed nostalgia for Mussolini's 20-year dictatorship.
But since she became premier last year -minister, she has done much to dispel fears that she might pose a threat to Italian democracy.
She insists her party is now far from the “cult of fascism” and has vowed to protect Italian Jews from “any form of anti-fascist fascism.” Semitism.”
On Monday, as Rome marked the 80th anniversary of the SS roundup of Jews, she condemned the “fascist complicity” that allowed Jewish families to be targeted.
Nicola Zingaretti, member The center-left Democratic Party and former governor of the Lazio region, which includes Rome, said the museum would help ensure that the memory of Italy's role in the Holocaust is not forgotten.
< p>He said: “If only we could listen to everyone today those people who went to their deaths 80 years ago, we could tell them… Italy has not forgotten you and will never forget.”
Out of 44,500 Italians, according to the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem, during the Holocaust there were 7,680 Jews were killed.
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