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From the memory of Auschwitz to civic engagement, the senator points to respect for ideas and listening to others as the most significant step toward a more humane society, in keeping with Pope Francis’s universal call for brotherhood.

She became a great-grandmother a year ago. And after three grandsons, a little girl has finally arrived. “Her name is Olivia, and her middle name is Liliana, like mine. I see her in videos; I talk to her on video calls because she lives in Chicago. She’s curious, she looks around, she’s bright. A very young woman of the future—it seems to me she has the character to face it.” The voice of Liliana Segre, 95, is strong, clear, and at times cheerful: “It’s a bit of a letdown, because when people hear me, they all say, ‘You look great.’ But despite my voice, I’m just an old lady.” In this exclusive interview for Piazza San Pietro, the senator for life, an Auschwitz survivor and Holocaust witness, recounts women’s achievements over the course of her century-long life. The progress, the setbacks, and the stumbles on the road to equality. She does so in March, the month in which International Women’s Day is celebrated worldwide, starting with an image of the concentration camps and the Shoah, among the greatest tragedies in history.

In her testimony about the concentration camps, she never fails to emphasize the unique experience of women. Why?

“There is the past, and let’s start there. I was a young girl, and I saw these two sides: the female prisoners and the women who held absolute power over them. I don’t mean the power to say ‘I’m firing you’ or ‘sign a blank contract,’ but the power to pass a sentence: ‘tomorrow you will be dead.’ I remember my astonishment—not at the prisoners, but at those who decided their fate. It was different facing the camp as a man or as a woman. Eighty years ago, we were the weaker sex, considered more fragile, more vulnerable. But those who had the power to send them to their deaths were women just like them.”

And today?
“How difficult it was for women to leave the kitchen. But they couldn’t fail to succeed; they couldn’t be relegated to doing housework. Little by little, women’s strength, their spirit, and their independence emerged.”

Unfortunately, not everywhere in the world.
“You’re right, of course not. But here in Europe, where we are, yes. Women have their place in politics, in science, in the professions. I worked for 35 years in my small company. I was a wife, a mother, a grandmother, but I didn’t have to give anything up for love.”

The strength of that little girl in Auschwitz is the same strength I draw on today to withstand controversy, threats, and attacks. Does being a woman have anything to do with it?
“I speak for myself. Ever since my youth—ever since I was old enough to form mature thoughts—I decided to be a woman of peace. I didn’t want revenge; I didn’t want to exploit my status as a survivor. Once I adopted this perspective, I made other decisions as well. To love only one man, to do so as a woman content with that choice. And then to become a mother. This is my life. In general, I think women possess extraordinary sensitivity, a different kind of insight, and when I see a woman in power who exercises it in the right way, I’m happy that she gets to demonstrate these qualities—it makes me proud. But I still suffer. I’m an old woman, but I’m not senile. I suffer in this part of my life as well. Because of the anti-Semitism that’s reaching such high levels, I suffer because I have a security detail, and I feel like it’s happening to me personally, not just to some other person I read about in the newspapers.”

In the schools where you told your story, were the boys or the girls more attentive?
“I don’t understand this curiosity, and I don’t like it. I think they were all attentive; perhaps the girls could relate to it more, but fortunately only to a small extent. I already knew the answers; I was interested in the questions those kids asked, and there were many. But I’ve never taken anyone on a “journey of remembrance.” Acquaintances, friends, relatives, school groups: no one. I’ve never wanted to go back. Others do it, but I don’t. I seem to recall that Berlusconi went once. In those terrifying places, he was wearing a fur coat. Well. Every now and then I look at pictures. Those places have aged too; their appearance has changed. When I saw students licking ice cream—it was summer—in front of the barbed wire, I realized I’d done the right thing by not going back. Besides, they were beautiful cones, all colorful.”

You started talking about your experience late…
“45 years of silence. For a long time, I didn’t even want to read about the Holocaust or watch movies. And I love the movies, even today. Then I read a little, I saw some reenactments. But not everything, you know.”

What progress regarding the status of women have you witnessed over the course of your long life?
“I was born in an era when women didn’t even ask questions, let alone have answers. Then came the first and second waves. After the war, the right to vote. And access to very high levels of responsibility. But I think there is one achievement that concerns everyone, men and women, and has obviously helped us most of all: the possibility of earning respect, attention, and giving a voice to anyone, even if you don’t share their views. Freedom of thought is the greatest step we have taken together.”

Which woman of our time can be a source of inspiration for a young girl?
“A young woman today can aspire to any position. I know Ursula von der Leyen and Roberta Metsola personally. They may make mistakes, but they’re weathering the storm of a period that’s never been so uncertain and difficult. I can, however, name someone I know better—she’s my colleague in the Senate: Elena Cattaneo. She fights with all her might against pharmaceutical companies. She has been fighting for years to make treatments for Huntington’s disease accessible to everyone—a very rare degenerative disease for which large corporations do very little, almost nothing. She is a great example of a woman.”

An interview by Goffredo de Marchis published in the March issue of the monthly magazine “Piazza San Pietro”