Italy approves Holocaust museum

ROME

Italy’s far-right government has given the green light to a Holocaust museum in Rome, where nearly 2,000 Jews were rounded up during World War II and sent to concentration camps.

A national museum in the capital would “contribute to keeping alive the present the memory of the Holocaust,” the government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said after her ministers agreed the project last week.

The announcement came on the heels of an official visit to Rome last week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Rome is home to one of Europe’s oldest Jewish communities.

Italy’s Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano said 10 million euros ($10.6 million) had been allocated to begin construction of the museum, a long-delayed project first proposed in the 1990s.

Symbolically, the museum will be built on land adjacent to the park of Villa Torlonia, the residence of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who was in power from 1922 to 1943.