Romanian Leader Apologizes to Gypsies

Romania’s president apologized for the deportation of thousands of Gypsies to Nazi death camps during World War II, the first time a government official has done so publicly.

President Traian Basescu also awarded the Order for Faithful Service to three Gypsy Holocaust survivors at a ceremony Monday.

More than 25,000 Gypsies, half of them children, were sent from Romania to extermination camps in the eastern Moldovan region of Trans-Dniester, which was then part of the Soviet Union. About 11,000 of the Gypsies, also known as Roma, died there.

"The authorities were merciless. They took the Roma from their homes, from the towns and army and sent them far away, to obtain a pure nation," Basescu said.

"We must tell our children that six decades ago children like them were sent by the Romanian state to die of hunger and cold," Basescu said.

A lack of wartime records makes it difficult to determine the overall number of Gypsies killed in the Holocaust. According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, it is between 220,000 and 500,000.

Part of Basescu’s apology was in Romanes, the language spoken by Roma, an unprecedented gesture by a Romanian head of state.

It was the first time a Romanian official apologized for the persecution of Gypsies during the Holocaust. Romanian leaders have in the past apologized for the role of the state in the killings of Jews.

Officially, about 500,000 Gypsies live in Romania, but surveys have put the actual figure at more than 1 million. The majority live in poverty and face discrimination in Romania and other parts of Europe.

Basescu said Europe should take steps to better include Gypsies in society, and Romanian schoolchildren should be taught about how they were enslaved and killed in the Holocaust.

Romania has begun work to improve the rights of its Roma minority, but many still do not have identity papers allowing them to receive social benefits. They also face discrimination in seeking jobs.

Gypsy children are more likely to drop out of school than their peers from other ethnic groups.