ROME - Messages of disgust began pouring in Monday, as news broke that twenty bronze bricks dedicated to Holocaust victims were stolen from a Roman street overnight. The removal of the bricks, which had been laid in Via Madonna dei Monti 82, has been described as “an anti-Semitic and fascist-like act.”

 The Associazione Arte in Memoria, the organisation responsible for the bricks’ original installation, revealed the news Monday morning. The bricks had been dedicated to members of the Di Castro and Di Consiglio families, and were laid on Jan. 9 2012 outside their palace gates.

 The production of the bricks had been funded by Rome’s Jewish Community, and commissioned by Holocaust survivor Giulia Spizzichino, who died in 2016. They had been created by German artist Gunter Demnig.

 The Di Consiglio family was among those most affected by the Holocaust. Family members were not only deported in the Oct. 16 1943 raid, but also on March 21, 1944. Over 20 individuals were deported to Auschwitz, or slaughtered in the Ardeatine massacre. The youngest victim, Giuliana Colomba Di Castro, was just 3 years old.

 “It is an unprecedented Fascist and anti-Semitic attack, caused by people who aren't just joking around, and a government like ours, which incites hatred against those who are ‘different’, is legitimising their acts,” President of the Associazione Arte in Memoria Adachiara Zevi said.

 His daughter Tullia Zevi described the incident as “unspeakable.”

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