Rome, 16 October 1943: Voices from the Ghetto
The evening of interdisciplinary study and commemoration was sponsored by the Embassy of Italy and Holocaust Centre of New Zealand, and supported by Berlin-based International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
The theme of the evening was recapturing lost or marginal voices through the historical reconstruction of absences, imagination, art, language and inter-semiotic translation. The programme included reflections from Associate Professor Sally Hill, Associate Professor Giacomo Lichtner, Reader in Translation Studies Dr Marco Sonzogni and Victoria University of Wellington alumnus Dr Giovanni Tiso.
The audience, packing a lecture theatre at Pipitea Campus, was challenged to question the narratives of history and memory through survivor testimony, cinematic representation and historical analysis.
The centrepiece of the event was the launch of Wellington-based graphic artist and author Sarah Laing’s Rome, 16 October 1943, a visual adaptation of Giacomo Debenedetti's 1944 short story, 16 October 1943.
As Professor Robert Gordon noted in his Foreword to the graphic novel, Laing’s astonishing sensitivity to the individual and to the everyday is ‘both humane and cruel’, challenging us to imagine while carefully keeping the visual and written archive alive.
For the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and its History and Italian Programmes, this event was an important opportunity to collaborate with numerous external partners and think holistically about research and engagement, epitomising the commitment of a global-civic, capital-city university.