By Hadas Kuznits

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The Italian consulate in Philadelphia today commemorated European Holocaust Remembrance Day with a reading of names.

Luigi Scotto, consul general of Italy in Philadelphia, says it took four hours to read off the nearly 8,000 names of Italian Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

“We try to remember all the victims of the Holocaust, reading the names of the Italian Jews who were deported in Germany during the Second World War, from 1943 to 1945,” he said today.

The names were read by Italian consulate employees standing outside the consulate, in the bitter cold, near 6th and Chestnut Streets.

(Luigi Scotto, Italian consul in Philadelphia. Credit: Hadas Kuznits)

“So, it’s a way to take responsibility I think for the past, yes.  It was a shame for our nation, yes,” says Scotto (right), who was the first to read names from the list.

He says there were especially emotional moments during the solemn proceedings.

“While I was reading these names, sometimes we have the same name — like Antikoli, Antikoli, Antikoli, many names.  It was sad, because it means that whole families were exterminated.”