Dorota Niedziela

Statement on the occasion of 2 August 2024, Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma

The genocide of the Sinti and Roma has left alasting mark on the six million-strong ethnic minority in Europe. On the night of August 2, 1944, 4,300 Sinti and Roma were brutally murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. They were the last prisoners to be herded into the gas chambers in the so-called “gypsy camp”, mostly elderly people, women and children. Today is the 80th anniversary of this shameful event.

The liquidation of the “Gypsy camp” in Auschwitz-Birkenau will forever remain a painful symbol of the silence surrounding the tragedy of the Sinti and Roma victims. Today, 80 years later, we must not forget this cruel crime against
humanity. On this day, we say out loud to the whole world: We remember. On this day, we say: Never again. Memory is the basis of identity. The identity of people, families, nations and communities. Honoring this day is our moral duty in the face of acts of hatred, terror and genocide from which the modern world is not
spared.

We must never forget that the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp bears witness to the despicable murder of millions of innocent people who were targeted by Nazis, who were obsessed with a destructive ideology, and that the Holocaust is the darkest chapter in the history of Europe. Today, it is our duty to remember and to ensure through our daily actions that genocides are never to be allowed to happen again.

Knowledge about the Holocaust should be forever embedded in the collective European memory. The Sinti and Roma are victims of the Holocaust who are often forgotten by many Europeans. In fact, they are often exposed to discrimination and racism in the modern world. In 2015, the European Union declared August 2 the “European Holocaust Memorial Day for Roma and Sinti”.

Since the early 1990s, commemorative events have been held in Poland in memory of all the victims who were exterminated in Nazi-occupied Europe. During the Second World War, several hundred thousand Sinti and Roma were
murdered, which equated to between 30 and 60% of their population in Europe. To Auschwitz camp alone, 23,000 Sinti and Roma were deported to die an agonizing death.

Sadly, more and more extreme movements and parties are emerging in Europe today, which favor hate speech in political discourse. That is why, as responsible politicians, we must take action every day against the exclusion of others and defend human rights, taking the side of democracy.