You are the butterflies that fly over the barbed wire

I'll start with thank my friend David Sassoli, who has invited me here today. I can't hide the deep emotion in seeing the colorful flags of many States, a brotherhood in this Parliament, where one discusses and looks into my eyes. At the day of 27 January was given an importance which in the end is not there. Auschwitz was not freed on that day. That day the Red Army entered, and it is very nice to the discourse that is Primo Levi's The Truce of the four Russian soldiers who do not evacuate the camp because the nazis had already escaped, but you are faced with this incredible show. A show later amazing for all those who chose to watch, while some do not want to see it even now, and says that is not true. It is a matter of amazement for the evil of others.

These are the words of extraordinary Primo Levi, and that no prisoner of Auschwitz, has never been able to forget. On the 27th of January I was 13 years old and I was working a slave in the ammunition factory Union. Suddenly came the command to immediately start the one that was called "death March". I was released on 27 January by the Red Army, I was part of that group of more than 50 thousand prisoners still in life obliged to a march that lasted months.

When I speak in schools, I say that everyone in life has to put one leg in front of the other, that you should never endorse anyone because in the "death March", we could not rely on the companion close that it dragged in the snow with the feet, forgetting that he was finished from the supply if it were dropped. Killed. The force of life is extraordinary, this is what we must convey to young people today. We didn't want to die, we were madly attached to life whatever it may be, for which we laboured in the leg in front of the other, buttandoci in the dung, eating the snow that was not dirty of blood.

First, we went through Poland and Silesia, was then Germany. After months and months we arrived at the Jugendlager of Ravensbruck. We were only young, but we seemed old, no sex, no age, no breasts, no menstruation, without underwear. You should not be afraid of these words because it is so that it takes away from the dignity of a woman. Day after day, field after field, I found myself at the end of the month of April 1945. As it was far away on the 27th of January, how many companions had died in that gear, never helped, because no one opened the window or threw a piece of bread. It was not only the German people, but the peoples of the whole of Europe occupied by the nazis in which we saw our neighbors be helpers extraordinary of the nazis. In Italy our neighbors we complained, they took possession of our apartment, even the dog if he was of the breed. This word, race, we still feel and then we need to fight this racism as structural remains.

people ask me how come he still speaks of anti-semitism. I say that there has always been, but it was not the political moment to pull out the racism and anti-semitism inherent in the soul of the poor in spirit. And then come the moments that are most suitable, courses, and historical patterns, in which there is a time on the other side. And then all those that take advantage of this situation find the most appropriate terrain to come forward.

When immediately after the war if I was alive and I returned to my Milan, with the smoking ruins, I was an injured girl, was wild, he knew no more eat with a knife and fork, still accustomed to eating like a beast. I was also criticized by those that loved me: they wanted to again the girl bourgeois from a good education.

It's difficult to remember these things and I have to say that for 30 years I speak in schools and I now feel as a difficulty psychic to continue, even if my duty would have this to the death. I saw those colors, I heard those screams and smells, I have met people in that Babel of languages that today I can remember here, where many languages meet in peace. In the fields it was possible to communicate with the companions who came from all over occupied Europe from the nazis only by finding common words, otherwise there was only the solitude and absolute silence. And flags out here I was talking about at the beginning made me remember that desire to find with the Dutch, French, Polish, Hungarian, and German, a common word. In Hungarian I learned one word, "bread." Is the root word that means fame, but also the sacredness of a thing today wasted without even looking at what you throw away.

for at least three years, I feel that the memories of that girl that I was did not give me peace. It does not give me peace because when I become a grandmother, thirty-two years ago, that little girl that did the "death March" is another person than me: I am the grandmother of myself. And it's a feeling that will not abandon me.

it Is my duty to speak in the schools, to bear witness. But I speak of me and of my companions. I jump out of. That little girl lean, scheletrita, desperate, alone. And I can not longer bear, because they are the grandmother of myself, and I feel that if I speak, if not I retreat for the time I have left to remember alone and enjoy the joys of the family myself, not I do more. Because I will not make more.

Even today I struggle to remember, but it seemed to me a great duty to accept this invitation to remember the evil of others. But also remember that you can, one leg in front of the other, be as that young child of Terezin who has drawn a yellow butterfly flying above the barbed wire. I didn't have the colored pencils and maybe I didn't the imagination wonderful girl Terezin. The yellow butterfly will always fly above the barbed wire. This is a simple message from my grandmother that I would like to leave to my future grandchildren ideals. That you are able to make the choice. And with their responsibility and their consciousness, always be that yellow butterfly that is flying above the barbed wire.

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