Nazi WW II Roma genocide remembered in Poland
PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle
02.08.2011 14:56
Representatives of several European countries have been taking part in events commemorating WWII's Roma genocide by Nazis and their allies, to coincide with the 67th anniversary of the liquidation of the so-called 'Roma camp' at Auschwitz-Birkenau on 2 August 1944.
photo - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The meetings are being promoted under Poland's presidency of the EU Council.
Meetings in Krakow and at Auschwitz began on Monday, with guests including leading specialists on the fate of the Roma community in wartime Europe.
Last Friday, the Polish parliament passed a resolution confirming 2 August as the official Roma and Sinti Genocide Remembrance Day.
The Roma Community - who refer to the attemped genocide as the Porajmos - want the date to be acknowledged across the EU.
Elzbieta Radziszewska, the government's Plentipotentiary for Equal Treatment, believes a Europe-wide resolution will be forthcoming.
“The Roma team is turning to all MEPs and President of the European Parliament to establish the day of remembrance,” she said in Krakow yesterday.
“From what I know, we already have the approval of our Polish MEPs and President Jerzy Buzek.”
Anywhere between 200,000 to 2 million Roma perished, the exact numbers not known, during the Nazi occupation of Europe.
“We have waited a long time to show our painful history to the world,” said Roman Chojnacki, a representative of the Roma community at yesterday's conference in Krakow.
“In every Roma family there are people who were killed in death camps or ghettos,” he said.
“This has not been spoken about for a long time,” he said. (nh/pg)
Source: PAP