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Liliana Segre: Holocaust survivor, natural Stoic
I recently read an interview with Liliana Segre, an Italian Holocaust survivor, in which she comes across as what I would call a natural Stoic. While telling her story of survival at Auschwitz to a group of students in Milan, Segre commented: “Il mio corpo è stato prigioniero, ma la mia mente ha sempre volato. Quella non avevano potuto tenerla prigioniera: io ho sempre pensato con la mia testa.” Which translates to: My body was imprisoned, but my mind has always been free. They could not imprison it: I have always thought with my own head.”
This immediately reminded me of Epictetus:
“‘I will throw you into prison.’ ‘Correction — it is my body you will throw there.’” (Discourses I, 1.24)
I say “natural Stoic” because I have no idea whether Segre actually embraces the philosophy, and almost surely she didn’t when she was sent to Auschwitz as a kid. She was expelled from school in 1938, at age 8, because of the newly passed “racial laws” in fascist Italy. Ironically, her family was secular, and she discovered her Jewish heritage only when she was kicked out of school. Her father, Alberto, hid Liliana at a friend’s house, providing her with false identification.
