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Day of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism
Ceremony in the plenary chamber © German Bundestag/Neuhauser
On 27 January 1945, soldiers of the Soviet Red Army liberated the German concentration camp Auschwitz, to the west of Kraków in southern Poland. Since 1940, people had been tortured, tormented and murdered there: Jews, above all, as well as Poles, Sinti and Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and prisoners of other nationalities.
National Day of Remembrance
In 1996, the German President of the day, Professor Roman Herzog, declared the 27th of January a national Day of Remembrance. Since then, a ceremony of remembrance has been held each year at the Bundestag, with those who witnessed the Holocaust first-hand invited to give speeches.