Works on Museo della Shoah could start this spring.
Italy's right-wing government has approved plans to build a Holocaust Museum in Rome, allocating €10 million for the project which was first proposed two decades ago.
"There is a museum of the Shoah in all of Europe's major capitals and it seemed only right to me for there to be one in our country too," culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano said on Friday.
Ruth Dureghello, the president of Rome's Jewish community, welcomed the news and expressed her hope that the project could finally proceed without further delay.
The Museo della Shoah is to be built on land adjacent to the grounds of Villa Torlonia which hosts the neoclassical former residence of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini from 1925 to 1943.
Designed by Italian architects Luca Zevi and Giorgio Tamburini, the cuboid-shaped museum is to have high black walls bearing the names of Italian Jews deported to Nazi concentration camps during world war two.
Zevi told news agency ANSA on Friday that he believes the works on the museum will start this spring, while Rome mayor Roberto Gualtieri said the city would play its part in ensuring that the works are carried out as quickly as possible.
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