Looking back. Looking ahead. 2020-2025

SURVIVORS AND LIBERATORS | SPEECHES   143 Survivors and Liberators Video message from 29 April 2021, ©Dachau Memorial I would like to start by greeting Dr Hammermann, Director of the Dachau Memorial, and programme officer Stefania. My name is Mario Candotto. I was born in Porpetto, Italy, on 2 June 1926. I am 94 years old. I live in Ronchi dei Legionari.   My entire family was deported: the men to Dachau, the   women to Auschwitz. Today, when we speak about the concentration camps, it can almost seem unbelievable. Because it is unbelievably hard to explain or convey to others what we endured and suffered.   It is very difficult. We hold on to our memories – and we do not forget!   We must not forget! And so I repeat myself. After all, this day of remembrance was created for precisely that reason: to keep our memories alive. It marks the liberation of Auschwitz on 27 January 1945, when Russian troops freed the concentration camp. Here, in Ronchi dei Legionari, we remember those we lost: 158 people from our village were deported. Around half of them never came home.We also remember 24 May 1944, the day I was arrested along with around 70 others from the   village. My entire family was taken. Sadly, four of them – my two brothers, who were partisans, and my parents – never returned. That is my personal tragedy. When I finally came home – my sister led us inside – we just looked at one another in silence, unable to find the words. The three of us felt completely abandoned. I was eighteen, my sister Ida seventeen, and my sister Fede twenty-three or twenty-four. Mario Candotto 76th anniversary  of the liberation of Dachau  29 April 2021 Just imagine that:We were still so young.When I stepped into the house, we were overwhelmed with sorrow. Then my sister Fede gathered herself and said:“Listen, life goes on”. (Translated transcript of video greeting) Mario Candotto was born in Italy in 1926. The entire   Candotto family was denounced and subsequently   arrested on 24 May 1944. Mario and his father were imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp. Mario Candotto died on 29 July 2025 at the age of 99.