“Half a million Sinti and Roma became victims of the greatest crime in human history. For a long time their fate was repressed, concealed, forgotten,” Van der Bellen wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
They and their descendants would have to make an effort themselves to have their culture and their suffering during the Nazi era recognized, the Federal President continued. “We cannot undo the past. But we can shape the present in such a way that the world becomes a better place in the long term.”
“Solidarity with the largest ethnic minority”
Vienna Mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ) said on Tuesday via Twitter: “In view of the genocide of the European Roma and Sinti during the National Socialist era and today’s commemoration day, it is a moral obligation to show solidarity with Europe’s largest ethnic minority and to oppose antigypsyism to resist.”
To date, there is unfortunately no national implementation of the European Holocaust Remembrance Day on August 2 in Austria, emphasized Olga Voglauer, spokeswoman for agriculture for the Greens, in a broadcast on Monday. National days of remembrance are a dignified and important part of the culture of remembrance. This goes hand in hand with the recognition and condemnation of Porajmos – the Romani word for the genocide of the European Roma 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,” said Voglauer.
“Facing Horror in the Face”
The German President of the Bundesrat, Bodo Ramelow (left), also warned to “pull racism and exclusion underfoot.” We are here today to look the horror in the face and thereby make it visible,” said Ramelow, according to the Thuringia State Chancellery on Tuesday At an event at the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial in Poland, Ramelow said that dealing with minorities “is an important criterion for the admission of new countries to the EU”, citing Russia’s war of aggression once morest Ukraine , this “must not be the backdrop or even serve as a pretext for expelling the Roma from Ukraine”.
The day of remembrance 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.
