Killing twice: the forgotten Roma Holocaust

Yes, modern European governments are not deporting Roma to death camps. However, International Roma Holocaust Memorial Day is not just a warning from the past, but a reminder that the steps to genocide are never too far away when racism and persecution of whole people groups continues with impunity.

Roma & Sinti Memorial in Berlin (Photo: A. Jones, CC BY 2.0)

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist and Holocaust survivour, Elie Wiesel, once said, ‘to forget a Holocaust is to kill twice’. Wiesel speaks of ensuring that the attempted murder of whole ethnic groups is never forgotten, and is part of our collective consciousness. If we forget, the perpetrators of genocide would have succeeded: the removal of certain individuals and groups from society. It is on all of us to prevent this from happening.

Today is International Roma Holocaust Memorial Day (2 August) and, although it would make me very happy if I were to be wrong, many of you probably did not know that the wholesale murder of Roma during World War Two was commemorated. What this day signifies for Roma is not only survival and reflection, but a struggle for recognition and rights in a world that continues to decry their existence. To this day, the Roma Holocaust is often forgotten and recognition has been a slow process.

The Unknown

The 2 August itself is a grim detail, for it was on 2 August 1944 that the ‘gypsy family camp' at Auschwitz-Birkenau was liquidated. Nearly 3,000 Roma – mostly women, children and the elderly – were taken to the gas chambers and murdered. The sad truth is that the numbers of Roma victims during the War is still unknown. Some historians plot the figure between 220,000 to 500,000. Some modern estimates suggested a figure closer to 1 million Roma murdered. Roma call their genocide the ‘Porajmos’. Literally ‘the destruction’.

Despite Roma being one of the most disproportionately affected groups during the Holocaust, the lack of official data of Roma victims has meant that recognition has been slow and, even worse, subject to denial.

For example, it was not until 1982 that Germany officially recognised the Roma Holocaust as race-based genocide, despite the Nazis extending racial laws in the late 1930s to Roma, considering communities to be a threat to the dangerous ideology of Aryanism. Additionally, it was only in 2016 that France apologised for collaborating with the Nazis to persecute and transport Roma to their deaths under Vichy France, former PM François Hollande stating that France “acknowledges the suffering of travelling people who were interned and admits…broad responsibility”.

The slow recognition in the 20th and 21st centuries is arguably a by-product of not including Roma in the immediate post-war Holocaust revelations and trials of Nazi war criminals. After the War, national and international tribunals prosecuted Nazis and their collaborators for crimes against humanity and genocide. However, no individual was ever charged with specific crimes against Roma communities, despite their being clear evidence of eugenics policies designed to prove Roma inferior and to exterminate them. During the headline Nuremberg Trials, which saw the most prominent Nazis prosecuted, not one Romani witness was called to tell the world what had happened to the hundreds of thousands of Roma who had disappeared from the continent. Cut out from the pages of history. Killed twice.

Denial

Forgetting genocide is an act of aggression against the victimised minority. Therefore, talking about the lack of representation of Roma in Holocaust memorials cannot be discussed without addressing the modern day persecution of Roma throughout Europe. One of the clearest illustrations of this is denial.

For me, the intermingling of politics in Czechia over the notorious Roma concentration camp at Lety is a symbol of how modern day persecution of Roma acts as a catalyst for denial of past atrocities. Despite scholars agreeing that the entire population of original Czech Roma were murdered during the War, Lety has been subject to far-right revisionism. Not only was a pig farm installed near the former site – showing utter disrespect – but, as recent as 2018, elected Czech MP and leader of the far-right SNP denied that Lety was used as a concentration camp, and that the Roma Holocaust was tantamount to a ‘myth’.

The Czech government has since bought the pig farm near the former site of Lety concentration camp, paid for the farm’s demolition and has green-lighted a permanent memorial for Roma victims at the camp. In a tragic but apt retort against the deniers, bodies of Roma inmates have recently been found at Lety, proving beyond doubt that the Nazis used the camp to imprison and work Roma to death.

The Steps to Genocide

Roma Holocaust denial is not surprising. Throughout Europe, Roma are still targeted in numerous degrees of brutality. In Hungary, neo-Nazi rallies lap up Victor Orban’s insistence that Roma are ‘aggressors against the majority’ as he still refuses to pay compensation for segregating Roma school children. In Bulgaria, violent pogroms have been perpetrated and are still threatened against Roma. In the UK, the nomadic way of life for many Roma and Travellers is at risk of being criminalised. The list is too long.

Yes, modern European governments are not deporting Roma to death camps. However, International Roma Holocaust Memorial Day is not just a warning from the past, but a reminder that the steps to genocide are never too far away when racism and persecution of whole people groups continues with impunity. Forgetting is killing twice figuratively. Continued persecution kills literally.

As Roma come together globally to commemorate the dead, you can do something too. Learn about our history, learn about the challenges and racism still faced by Roma communities today, and remember the 2 August.

If you want to find out more about Roma human rights, please consider following supporting some of these organisations: ERGO Network, European Roma Rights Centre, Roma Education Fund, Slovo 21 and others