A woman who was one of the few Italian children to survive deportation to a Nazi death camp has been made a senator-for-life in Italy.

President Sergio Mattarella's office said Friday that he chose Liliana Segre for the honor because she had made the nation proud with her social commitment. For decades, Segre, 87, was reluctant to discuss her experiences in Auschwitz. But in the 1990s, she began speaking to schoolchildren throughout Italy about the Holocaust.

Italy is marking the 80th anniversary of Fascist-era racial laws targeting the nation's Jewish community.

Segre and her family went into hiding after the 1938 law. They were arrested in 1943. Only 25 of 775 Italian children survived Nazi death camps.

Segre told the ANSA news agency she's an ordinary woman who just tells what she saw.