08/02/2022 14:35 (act 08/02/2022 14:35)
Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen recalled the hundreds of thousands of Sinti and Roma who were murdered by the National Socialists in Europe. “Half a million Sinti and Roma have become victims of the greatest crime in human history. For too long their fate has been repressed, hidden, forgotten,” Van der Bellen wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
They and their descendants would have to make an effort to have their culture and suffering during the Nazi era recognized, the federal president continued. “We can’t undo the past. But we can shape the present in such a way that the world becomes a better place in the long run.”
Vienna Mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ) said on Tuesday via Twitter: “In view of the genocide of Roma and Sinti Europeans during the National Socialist era and today’s day of commemoration, it is a moral obligation to show solidarity with Europe’s largest ethnic minority and oppose anti-gypsyism to resist.”
So far, unfortunately, there is no national implementation of the European Holocaust Remembrance Day on August 2 in Austria, emphasized Olga Voglauer, agriculture spokeswoman for the Greens, in a broadcast on Monday. National Days of Remembrance are a worthy and important part of the culture of memory. This goes hand in hand with the recognition and condemnation of Porajmos – the Gypsy word for the genocide of European Gypsies during the National Socialist era. “This is not only of great importance for the victims of the Roma genocide and their relatives, but also for Austria’s self-image,” Voglauer said.
German Bundesrat President Bodo Ramelow (left) also warned to “pull racism and exclusion under your feet”. Chancellery on Tuesday At an event at Poland’s Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial, Ramelow said dealing with minorities “is an important criterion for the admission of new countries to the EU”, citing Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, that “It should not be a backdrop or even a pretext for expelling Roma from Ukraine.”
Remembrance Day commemorates the 4,300 Sinti and Roma who were murdered by the SS in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp on August 2, 1944.
In Austria, the Roma ethnic group has been recognized as the sixth minority since 1993.