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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.
But on 10 December 1943 — when she was 13 — she and her father tried to obtain asylum in Switzerland and were turned down. The very next day they were arrested by the fascists. On January 30, 1944, they were both deported from Milan’s central station, headed for Auschwitz. Once arrived, she was separated from her father, who was killed on April 27 of the same year. On May 18th, her paternal grandparents, who had also been deported to Auschwitz, were killed as well. As you can see, callously denying asylum to people whose life is in peril does have direct, dire consequences, which should weigh on the conscience of those who do the denying.
Liliana was forced to work in the Union ammunition factory, which was owned by the German company Siemens. Big business always thrives in wartime. She was liberated by the Red Army on May 1st, 1945. Liliana was one of only 35 Italian children, our of 776, who survived Auschwitz.
Another bit of natural Stoicism in Segre emerges later on in the article, when…
