Today at the Sachsenhausen Memorial, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the signing of the “Auschwitz Decree” by Heinrich Himmler, Claudia Roth, Minister of State for Culture, Romani Rose, Chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, Tobias Dünow, Brandenburg State Secretary for Culture and Science, and Foundation Director Axel Drecoll commemorated the victims of the National Socialist genocide of the Sinti and Roma, which had claimed the lives of several hundred thousand members of the minority from all over Europe.
Around 80 people took part in the event, among them Alma Klasing, Dieter Flack and Albert Wolf, who had survived the National Socialist genocide of the Sinti and Roma, as well as board members of the state and member associations of the Central Council. Minister of State Claudia Roth, Romani Rose, State Secretary Tobias Dünow, State Parliament Vice President Barbara Richstein and numerous other representatives from politics and society laid wreaths at the central memorial site “Station Z”.
In her address, Claudia Roth, Minister of State for Culture, said: “We need more togetherness, more cultural and political education and more visibility of the great cultural wealth of Sinti and Roma. Above all, however, we need recognition and equal rights. Together with the Sinti and Roma community, civil society actors and committed representatives of the Länder and municipalities, I will continue to do everything I can for comprehensive equal rights for the Sinti and Roma.”
Romani Rose gave a warning: “Commemoration and remembrance today, more than seventy-five years after the collapse of the National Socialist reign of terror, is not about transferring the guilt to today’s generation in Germany. Rather, the purpose of remembering means active responsibility for the present and for our democratically constituted constitutional state. In Germany, a great deal has been achieved politically in recent decades thanks to the persistent work of the Central Council: both the Holocaust against the Sinti and Roma, and antigypsyism as a threat to society as a whole, have now been recognised and the democratic parties have confronted this long-repressed part of history. Nevertheless, many Sinti and Roma are convinced that they can only live their lives freely if they withdraw into anonymity. The reasons for this lie in antigypsyism. To ostracise it, is not the task of the minority itself. It is the task of society and its institutions, because we are equal citizens of our European homelands, where we are citizens and where we have lived for centuries.”
Tobias Dünow, the Brandenburg State Secretary for Culture and Science, at the commemoration ceremony in Sachsenhausen on 15.12.2022 © Central Council of German Sinti and RomaState Secretary Tobias Dünow said: “Exclusion – that was not the exception for Sinti and Roma in Germany, but the rule. Not only between 1933 and 1945, but already in the centuries before, and also afterwards. It is thanks to the civil rights movement around Romani Rose that we now – far too late – remember these crimes of the National Socialists. The civil rights movement of the Sinti and Roma was and is an incredible act of courage and self-assertion against hatred, ignorance, and arrogance.”
Foundation Director Axel Drecoll added: “Even in the democratic constitutional state of the Federal Republic of Germany, prejudice, defamation, and discrimination characterised judicial and official practices for decades. Most of the surviving Sinti and Roma were not considered equal after 194 or entitled for compensation, but remained for a long time the victims of a policy of injustice pursued and sanctioned by the state. To this day, social discrimination and assaults are part of the sad everyday life of the Sinti and Roma. It is therefore all the more important to remember the victims here and now, to honour the survivors, and to come to terms with the crimes. Looking back into the past can and must serve to emphasise the fundamental importance of mutual respect and solidarity in the present and the future. That is the only way to ensure that the dignity of every human being is indeed inviolable and that we not only respect diversity, but understand it as the basis of existence and the lifeblood of our society.”
Background:
80 years ago, on 16 December 1942, Heinrich Himmler signed the “Auschwitz Decree”, which ordered the deportation of Sinti and Roma from all over Europe to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. Among them were 10,000 German Sinti and Roma from the then Reich territory. In total, several hundred thousand Sinti and Roma were murdered in concentration camps or by SS Einsatzgruppen in occupied Europe. More than 1,000 Sinti and Roma were imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Information: www.sachsenhausen-sbg.de | www.zentralrat.sintiundroma.de