Rai Kids presents the short movie La Cartolina di Elena (Elena's postcard) which will be aired on Friday, January 27 at 16.50 by Rai Gulp and at 16:00 by Rai 3, it will be available on Rai Play as well. The special - aimed at children and families - is dedicated to the memory of Holocaust in the Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The special animation/live-action (30') produced by Simona Ercolani (Stand by me CEO), in collaboration with Rai Kids which brings to the screen the story of Elena Colombo, a little Jewish girl from Turin deported in '44 to Auschwitz alone, the only documented case in the entire Italian Shoah. She was only 10 years old when she died in Auschwitz on the same day she arrived in the camp. The animation is realized by Lynx Multimedia Factory and it is directed by Raffaele Androsiglio.
Born on 5 June 1933 in Turin, Elena Colombo spent a peaceful and carefree childhood, like that of many children, when her existence was disrupted by the promulgation in 1938 of the racial laws and the consequent discriminatory and persecutory policy. The Colombo family was forced to flee, first to Rivarolo Canavese, where Elena met her friend Bianca, and then to Forno Canavese, where they were all arrested on 8 December 1943.
While her parents were immediately taken to the Auschwitz extermination camp, on the same train as Liliana Segre, Elena was entrusted to family friends with whom she stayed for three months before she too was deported to Auschwitz, after writing a last postcard to Bianca. She died there on the same day she arrived, 10 April 1944. She was 10 years and 10 months old.