German parliament remembers Holocaust victims with ceremony

BERLIN (AA) – The German parliament held a special session on Friday to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust.

Addressing lawmakers and guests, Parliament Speaker Baerbel Bas said the Holocaust is a crime “that is without comparison” in the history of mankind, and Germans bear responsibility for this.

“Today we remember all people who were persecuted, robbed, humiliated, marginalized, deprived of their rights, tortured and murdered by the Nazis,” she said.

Bas pointed out that many of the victims of “the German war of extermination” during World War II in Eastern Europe were Ukrainians.

“I am horrified that Holocaust survivors were amongst those killed in the current Russian attacks on Ukraine,” she said.

The paliament speaker also criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for calling the war in Ukraine the “de-nazification” of the country.

“Comparing the Russian war of aggression to the liberation of Germany from the Nazis is an unbearable insult to the victims of National Socialism,” she said.

Bas also underlined that nearly 80 years after the Holocaust, antisemitism, racism and xenophobia persist in various forms.

“A free and open society is not something which should be taken for granted,” she said, and called on citizens to take a stronger stance.

“Never again! This is a duty. For all of us. Every day,” she stressed.

The German parliament holds a memorial service annually on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Army on Jan. 27, 1945.

Around 1.1 million people, mostly Jews from across Europe, were killed at the Auschwitz camp between 1940 and 1945. Many other minority groups were targeted as well.

This year, the focus of the commemoration event at the German parliament was those persecuted by the Nazis due to their sexual orientation or their gender identity.