Indifference. The wall with the inscription of Indifference dominates the empty hall. The word indifference is a conscious choice of the architects in agreement with one of the survivors, Liliana Segre, who is also a Senator in the government of Italy. This installation highlights one of the main reasons why the Holocaust was possible at all. Indifference builds walls, past which we can not see, and the memorial is invisible to us from this side of the wall. It doesn’t refer to the indifference of 1943, when the deportations begin, but to an earlier time, to 1938, when the racial laws were enacted. They marked a split in Italian society, making the victims invisible. Going around the wall of Indifference means overcoming this split from the city and from the rest of society.
The ramp. The ramp accompanies us beyond the Wall of Indifference, making it disappear, leading us in an uphill path to a different level from the street, the city and society. The ramp clearly divides the part of the memorial, place of memory and theater of events, from the area more linked to life. This architectural choice also strengthens the separation made by the Wall. The dual vitality of the Memorial becomes tangible: on the one hand – natural light, the present, life, the fight against indifference, on the other – the darkness that accompanies the past and Memory.
