“With this gesture today we intend to reiterate our clear, unswerving position,” Lotito said.
“Lazio has always repressed certain phenomena with initiatives in schools. As of today we intend to organise a day each year when we will take 200 young people to Auschwitz.”
The announcement comes after stickers of Anne Frank wearing a Roma guernsey were found on the walls of the south end (Curva Sud) of Rome’s Stadio Olimpico, normally reserved for Roma fans, during Lazio’s 3-0 win over Cagliari on Sunday.
The stickers were accompanied by anti-Semitic slogans, such as “Roma fans are Jews”.
Lazio’s “ultra fans” were in the stand of their rivals because their own area (Curva Nord) was shut due to previous incidents of racism.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella on Tuesday condemned the behaviour of the group.
“The face and pages of the diary of Anne Frank, her story of suffering and her death at the hands of Nazi barbarism, moved the world,” Mattarella said.
“Using her image as a sign of insult and threat - in addition to being inhuman - is alarming for our country, which was infected 80 years ago by the obtuse cruelty of anti-Semitism.”
Efraim Zuroff, the director of Jerusalem’s Simon Wiesenthal Centre, on Tuesday blasted the racial slur as “disturbing, miserable, repugnant”.
“There are no words to condemn such a shameful gesture,” Zuroff said.
“It is trivialisation of the Shoah, transforming an inhuman tragedy into a simple squabble between fans.”
Italian Football Federation (FIGC) prosecutors are set to open a probe into the incident, as Sports Minister Luca Lotti warned those involved would be punished.
On Tuesday, the federation said in a statement that a minute’s silence will be held and a passage read from Anne Frank’s famous diary before this week’s matches.
With ANSA
