Peres to address Germany parliament in Hebrew on Holocaust Day

President Shimon Peres departed for a state trip to Germany on Monday morning, and is set to address the German parliament later in the week to commemorate international Holocaust Remembrance Day. Peres, almost all of whose family was killed in the Holocaust, including his grandparents who were burned alive in a synagogue in Poland, will deliver a speech in Hebrew to the hundreds of members of the Bundestag. In addition to the paliamentary address, Peres is also expected to participate in a memorial service at 'Platform 17,' from which Berlin's Jews were sent to their death during the Second World War. He will be accompanied on his trip by survivors and their families, members of youth groups and Israel Defense Forces soldiers, who will be present at his speech and at the other events. "The Germans have also learned a lesson," Peres told Army Radio on Monday. "They want to mend their history, and while we can't forget we can, with them, gaze look forward to a new future," Peres added. Peres will be accompanied Yonah Laks, chairwoman of the Organization of Mengele Twins. "I have been in Germany many times before in order to tell, remind and immortalize everything that happened," Lacks told Army Radio, "so this is nothing new." However, Laks added that "ever time I arrive my heart pounds horrible. The scenes that took place at the camp back then return and it is as if it was happening now." "But this time, traveling with our president, there's a feeling of satisfaction along with the difficult sentiments," Laks added, "that maybe history had changed, with the fortunate establishment of the State of Israel." Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to depart later Monday to Poland, to take part in a ceremony commemorating 65 years to the release of the Auschwitz concentration camp.