European Parliament President Roberta Metsola opened the ceremony to commemorate the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, honoured annually on 27 January to mark the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp in 1945.
“Today, antisemitism spreads faster than ever, amplified online and turning old lies into deadly realities. Remembering the Holocaust means confronting hatred wherever it appears – before it is allowed to take root again. Because if ‘Never Again’ is to mean anything at all, it has to guide the choices we make today and the Europe we choose to build together,” she said.
President Metsola’s speech was followed by a performance of Nicola Piovani’ song “Beautiful That Way”, performed by the singer Noa.
In her address, Tatiana Bucci shared the story of her family, her mother, aunt, her sister Andra and their cousin Sergio, who were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in March 1944.
She explained how she and Andra being confused as twins helped them avoid, together with Sergio, being sent to the gas chambers. The three children spent ten months in Birkenau. Ms Bucci recalls: “I got used to that life immediately, and I understood that I was Jewish by listening to our guards talk, and that we Jews were meant to have that life — which was not life, but death.”
The sisters had their lives spared a second time when they were warned by a camp guard, who told them not to reply when they would soon be asked whether anyone wanted to rejoin their mothers. They passed the information to Sergio, who could not resist and replied affirmatively when asked. He was then deported to another camp, subjected to experimentation, and then “brutally killed, hung on butcher’s hooks”.
Following their liberation from the camp, Tatiana and Andra were sent to an orphanage in England before reuniting with their parents in Italy in December 1946.
Once in Rome, the sisters were shown photographs of children from parents in the hopes they could identify them. Tatiana later understood they were all children killed after the 1943, raid on Rome’s Jewish ghetto. “Since then, and especially in these times we live in today, I hope that all children in the world can have the life I was able to live after the war and grow old as I have,” she said, adding that despite everything, “life is beautiful.”
After her speech, MEPs observed a minute’s silence and the ceremony ended with a musical performance of “Kaddish” by Maurice Ravel. You can watch the sitting live here.
About Tatiana Bucci
Tatiana Bucci was born in 1937 in Fiume, a town at the time part of Italy, now Croatia. Tatiana was just six years old when she and her four-year-old sister Andra, and their mother, aunt, grandmother and cousin were deported to Auschwitz on 4 April 1944. Tatiana and Andra Bucci are among the youngest child survivors of Auschwitz who have memories of their experience.
In December 1946, the girls were reunited with their parents in Italy. The sisters returned to Auschwitz for the first time in 1996. Tatiana now lives in Belgium with her family.
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