“For having nourished the memory and values of freedom and tolerance.” It is with this profound motivation that the Alba-Bra Onlus Hospital Foundation will award the 2024 Gratitude Award to Senator Liliana Segre on Friday, a few days after the commemorations for 25 April, the celebration of Italy’s liberation from Nazi occupation and fascism . The presentation of the award to the Holocaust survivor and tireless witness of Nazi persecution is scheduled for 5.30 pm in the auditorium of the Verduno hospital named after Michele and Pietro Ferrero, with a public interview by the journalist and writer Mario Calabresi which will also be visible in streaming on the website www.fondazioneassociazionealbabra.it.
«We are truly proud to be able to offer this recognition to a great woman of our country and her tireless will to publicly promote love for life, together with the courage of peaceful ideas and the blame for indifference» say the president of the Foundation, Bruno Ceretto, and the director Luciano Scalise. On the hills that were the scene of the partisan struggle, for the promoters the presentation of the Gratitude Award to Senator Segre is an opportunity to keep alive the memory of the tragedy of the past, but above all to fight prejudices and indifference towards the tragedies of the present, always with the desire to establish an open dialogue with the other components of society, inspired by the principles of freedom, democracy and respect for people. The same high values that in 2019 in Alba were at the center of the awarding of another significant recognition to Liliana Segre, the Truffle of the Year on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of obtaining the Gold Medal for Military Valor for the partisan struggle of liberation.
But there’s more. A few months ago, in her column in Oggi magazine, the senator cited the Alba Bra Hospital Foundation as a virtuous example for better public healthcare. «As often happens, what makes up for many shortcomings are the good will and good practices of that part of civil society that is trying to organize itself – wrote Liliana Segre -. I recently had the opportunity to get to know a reality that can represent a virtuous example in this. This is the Alba-Bra Hospital Foundation, born 15 years ago from the will of Piedmontese entrepreneurs and citizens.” Here is a further reason to award her the Gratitude Award, established in 2016 to promote and spread the culture of donation. Last year, the award went to the French architect Aymeric Zublena, designer of the Verduno hospital structure. In 2022 to Maria Franca Ferrero, who has always supported the Hospital Foundation.
