“May their memory serve as a blessing and a warning”
As part of Roma Holocaust/Pharraimos Remembrance Day, one minute of silence
will be observed on August 2, 2010 at 12 noon at the Holocaust memorial stone in
front of the Palais de l’Europe, Council of Europe, in Strasbourg in memory of
over 3,000 Roma exterminated during the night of 2-3 Aug 1944 in the gas
chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the German Nazis.
Mr. Rudko Kawczynski, President of the European Roma and Travellers Forum (ERTF),
will address the gathering. Participants are kindly asked to light a candle at
the Holocaust memorial stone after the speech.
With the adoption of the Charter on the Rights of the Roma by the Plenary
Assembly held on February 24 2010, ERTF has reinforced its commitments to raise
awareness of Pharrajimos, which is less well recognised, and frequently
separated from that of the Jewish experience, especially in the teaching of the
history of this period. The Holocaust commemoration also has a role in combating
anti-Tziganism and other forms of intolerance.
The European Roma and Travellers Forum therefore calls on all Roma around the
world as well as the entire international community, to show their solidarity on
this day by observing one minute of silence and to organise commemorations in
their cities, countries, mahalas, ghettos each year on August 2, at noon, in
order to remember those Roma who suffered during the Nazi era, and whose voices
has been made silent by the killing gas.
Throughout German-occupied Europe, Roma were interned, and then deported to
slave-labour and death camps. They were despised because of their social status.
The existence of the Roma was also seen as a threat to "Aryan" blood purity.
Hundreds of thousands of Roma were killed by SS and police units in the East;
more were deported and killed in camps. At Birkenau, a special camp was built to
house Roma inmates, where they continued to live in Family units. Roma children
were subjected to brutal and inhumane "medical experiments" by Dr. Mengele and
his staff. On August 2, 1944, the Gypsy camp at Auschwitz was "liquidated". All
its men, women, and children were sent to the gas chambers.
