Europe's largest minority group is often subjected to "racism and the denial of rights," Bodo Ramelow, premier for the German state of Thuringer, said in a speech to mark the European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
On August 2, 1944, some 4,300 Sinti and Roma were killed in gas chambers at the death camp. In 2015, the European Parliament declared the anniversary European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day to commemorate the 500,000 Roma — representing at least a quarter of their total population at that time — murdered in Nazi-occupied Europe. It wasn't until 1982 that the Nazi mass-murder of the Sinti, a subgroup of Romani people mostly found in Germany and Central Europe, and Roma people became recognized as genocide.
"Half a million Sinti and Roma were murdered during the Nazi dictatorship," Ramelow said. "Just like Jews and other minorities, Sinti and Roma were persecuted to their deaths because a racist ideology denied them the right to live."
With an estimated population of 10 million people, the Roma community is Europe's largest ethnic minority.
"And yet, in many places, they are once again being marginalized," Ramelow said. "They experience hatred, exclusion, racism, violence and the denial of civil and social rights in many countries."
German lawmaker says Roma community is ′again being marginalized′ | News | DW | 02.08.2022
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