Day Of Remembrance Of Romani And Sinti Extermination
A meeting of the Joint Government-National Minorities Commission’s Team for Romani Affairs was held in Cracow. On Tuesday its members visited Auschwitz-Birkenau.
‘It is very important that such a day has been established. And its date was by no means coincidental, because it was on 2nd August 1944 that the Gypsy camp at Auschwitz was liquidated,’ stressed Elżbieta Radziszewska, Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Treatment. The Romani Team will also support the Romani minorities’ efforts to establish a European Romani Extermination Remembrance Day.’
The observances were organised at the initiative of the Team for Romani Affairs attached to the Joint Government and National and Ethnic Minorities Commission. They enjoy the support of the Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Treatment, the Ministry of Interior and Administration, the Voivod (provincial governor) of Lesser Poland and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The purpose of this initiative is to memorialise the victims and propagate knowledge of the extermination of the Romani people within the context of anti-racist and anti-discriminatory education. ‘Memory of the past helps us all to overcome contemporary problems,’ noted Ms Radziszewska.
