German Parliament Honors Holocaust Survivor Killed in Ukraine Attack

Germany's parliament on Tuesday remembered Boris Romanchenko, a 96-year-old survivor of several Nazi concentration camps who was killed last week in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

The Buchenwald concentration camp memorial announced his death on Monday. It said Romanchenko had survived Buchenwald as well as the camps at Peenemuende, Dora and Bergen-Belsen, and that he died on Friday. According to his granddaughter, the multistory building in which he lived was struck by a projectile.

The memorial described Romanchenko as devoted to preserving the memory of Nazi crimes. He served as vice president of the International Buchenwald-Dora Committee.

Deputy speaker Katrin Goering-Eckardt paid tribute to him as she opened the day's session of the Bundestag. She recounted that he was brought to Dortmund, Germany, as a forced laborer in 1942, and that he was sent to concentration camps after trying to escape in 1943. Nazi Germany had invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.

"His death reminds us that Germany has a special historical responsibility toward Ukraine," Goering-Eckardt said. She noted that Romanchenko was one of thousands of people who have died in Ukraine, adding that each life lost is a reminder to do everything possible to end what she called a cruel war that violates international law, and to help people in and from Ukraine.

Lawmakers then observed a moment of silence for Romanchenko and for other victims of the war.

Finance Minister Christian Lindner also spoke of the survivor's fate. Romanchenko, he said, had "survived four concentration camps and was now killed in the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine." Lindner said the case shows both the criminal character of Russian policy and the reason Germany is showing solidarity with Ukraine, and why it must continue to do so.