Italy marks Holocaust Remembrance Day on Saturday with a series of commemorative events on the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Italy's president Sergio Mattarella marked the Giorno della Memoria with a speech on Friday at the Quirinale Palace in Rome, with Holocaust survivor Sami Modiano a guest of honour.

"It must never be forgotten that our country, Italy, adopted the despicable racist laws during Fascism - in a climate of overall indifference: the initial chapter of the terrible book of extermination; and that members of the Republic of Salò actively collaborated in the capture, deportation and even massacres of Jews", Mattarella said.