Name: How the European Parliament marked the Holocaust Remembrance Day | DW News
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The world is marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day for the victims of the Nazi regime.

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81 years ago, on January 27, 1945, soldiers of the Red army reached the concentration and extermination camps of Auschwitz.

Holocaust survivors are among those remembering the more than 1.1 million people who were systematically murdered at Auschwitz alone, most of whom were Jewish.

They've been laying wreaths at the site of the death Wall where thousands of political prisoners were shot.

Commemorations are taking place throughout the day at the site.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament is holding a special plenary session to mark the Remembrance Day.

Holocaust survivor Tatiana Bucci was invited as a special guest to address members of Parliament.

Tatiana was just 6 years old when she was deported to the Auschwitz concent camp in 1944.

She survived 10 months there alongside her sister and she now lives in Belgium with her family.

TW correspondent Terry Schultz is at the European Parliament.

She gave me an update on how International Holocaust Remembrance Day was marked there.

This is not only the European Parliament's Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is also the United Nations International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Now, the European Parliament, even a year earlier, and, sorry, a decade earlier in 1995, encouraged all its member states to establish their own date for this and in fact, all of the 27 do.

They may hold it on a different date and with a different emphasis, but

it is in fact recognized throughout the bloc.

Now, here at the European Parliament, each year they hold a special plenary session inviting different artists, different musicians and different speakers to come here and share memories about their experiences, their, of course, horrible experiences during the Holocaust, just to ensure that as long as they can speak, they are passing on these memories.

And that is what in fact did just happen at the European Parliament with, as you mentioned, Tatiana Bouchie, who was just a child when she was taken away.

I believe you spoke to Tatiana Bucci earlier, Terry, what was she saying?

What were the most important, important messages that she wanted to share today?

I did have a conversation with her that was unfortunately much shorter than the address that she gave to the European Parliamentarians.

And I'll mold together both of these stories.

As you mentioned, she was just six when she and her younger sister were taken away to Birkenau.

They were separated from their parents, believed their parents had died.

And she shared some just horrific stories.

She could recall not so much the starvation, but, but the cold.

She said that as children, of course, they looked for ways to play and they did this even amongst the skeletal remains there in the concentration camps.

And she remembers one just really traumatizing story about how one day guards came and offered to all the children who wanted to see their mother again to come forward.

She and her sister had been warned, don't move.

And this is, in fact, one of the ways that they survived.

Another reason they survived was because they looked like tragedy twins.

So they were preserved in the thought that perhaps Josef Mengele would like to use them in his twisted experiments.

So there are just some really, really traumatic memories that Tatiana is sharing.

But she spoke very much about the theme of this year, Holocaust through the eyes of a child.

She remembered not just how she and her sister had clung to each other to survive, but

also how her mother had been taken away from or had had to leave Ukraine as a child due to anti Semitism.

But her main message here today was one of hope, and

hope that in fact, the children that are suffering now in conflict throughout the world would also have a happier ending for their lives.

Really difficult stories to hear, but such important stories to tell.

Thank you for joining us today on Holocaust Remembrance Day in the European Parliament.

But more important is that we are joined by Tatiana Bucci.

She is one of the last living survivors of the Holocaust, and

she is here to give an address to the European Parliament and through the delegates to the world.

Tatiana, thank you so much for joining us here on dw.

I thank you because being a witness today is more important than ever, more important than yesterday.

What are your feelings as you come here, Your first time in this enormous Parliament?

Your audience is going to be some of the most influential people in their countries.

How important is that that they hear you today?

This is my first time with such an audience here in the Parliament, and

I came to prosp back in 1964 because my husband was working for the European institutions.

It is very important for me to be here today.

The Parliament has been holding this event for Remember stay since 2005, and

we have been going to the schools and talking to the students with this intent since 2004.

We are asking you to go back into your worst memories.

It must be an enormous personal cost to revisit this in an effort to make people see how horrible humans can be to each other.

As for the personal cost of having to go back to those hard times, to those black times, it is very hard because I have to go back in time every time That I thought that I talk about what happened in Birkenau and I still see myself as a kid there.

You have done your best to share your experiences, to share your hope that these things don't ever happen again.

And yet the world is not going in a very positive direction in most areas.

Cue lo que esta suchedendo propio per que tropi bambini.

Concerning the direction that the world is taking today, I can only say that it's very hard for me to witness all that because too many children are dying in the world, everywhere in the world, children of all religions.

And I can only wish to those children that they can live to old age and become grandparents.

As I am an old lady and a grandparent, that is very important to me.

But thinking of the hundred thousands of children that are already gone, it's very hard to acknowledge.

So I will go on until I can and I will be doing this for them.

Tatiana, in fact, your own mother was born in Ukraine.

You are going, you're speaking here in Brussels today to people who care very much about Ukraine, care very much about what happens there.

Thinking of your mother, thinking of your own childhood where so much was damaged.

What is your message today and for the rest of the years that you continue doing this?

My mom fled Ukraine because there was a pogrom there.

And they moved to Fiume where she and her family were welcomed with open arms.

And this is exactly what I wish were happening today.

When the war erupted in the Ukraine, I felt Ukraine, I felt part of the country.

Since the outbreak, I've been feeling more Ukrainian than ever.

And instead, now with the war, I can picture my mom as a child fleeing Ukraine.

My message is that we must be able to accept others people different from us.

My mom was born in 1908 and she was welcomed with open arms when she had to flee.

So my message today is that we must welcome others, regardless of their religion, regardless of their color, and

we must not leave them to die in the sea, for instance.

We must welcome others, even people who are different from us.

88 year old Holocaust survivor Tatiana Bucci, joining us on DW Today on Holocaust Remembrance Day.