Holocaust survivor opens book fair after neo-fascist banned
ROME -- A Polish-born Holocaust survivor opened a book fair in Italy on Thursday to a standing ovation, after organizers agreed to ban a publisher linked to a neo-fascist group.
Halina Birenbaum, an 89-year-old poet who lives in Israel, was quoted by Italy's Corriere della Sera daily as saying "this is more proof for me that evil will not win."
Birenbaum and the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum had threatened to boycott the 2019 Turin International Book Fair if it included the Altaforte publishing house, whose director is linked to the neo-fascist CasaPound party.
"We consider our presence incompatible with that of a neo-fascist publishing house that openly spreads a revisionist culture," read a letter signed by Birenbaum and others including Piotr Cywinski, director of the state museum in Poland.
