International Commemoration…
than half a million, with countless casualties more still to be documented in the search for mass graves and unmarked massacre sites throughout the Nazi-occupied areas, especially in the eastern regions. I welcome the opportunity to speak up and recall the names of some of our Roma and Sinti survivors, of some of our heroes, and to mark our place in the resistance against the Nazis. It is a time for the world to listen to our histories, as part of the history of the Holocaust and as part of the history of Europe. Seventy years after the liquidation of the so-called Zigeunerlager at Auschwitz-Birkenau, we find ourselves at a critical moment – a crossroads – for rethinking and reclaiming commemorative practice. This crossroads is marked by a deep sadness and potential crisis as we witness the passing away of our elders, those who survived the attempted destruction of Roma and Sinti by Nazis and their allies, who survived deportations, internment, torture and dehumanization, and the loss of their families and loved ones, whose experiences were often overlooked, at times denied, and mostly relegated to the footnotes of history. The Roma and Sinti survivors of the Nazi Genocide were often denied reparations and their own memory; they, along with the first post-war generation, struggled to have that memory heard and to gain recognition of the suffering and atrocity they and their communities experienced. While many did not speak of that which they suffered, we are lucky to have a number of stories, testimonies, histories and narratives by those who struggled to be heard. While the survivors have been ageing and dying, without seeing the kind of justice that they – and we – might have hoped for, their stories remain as testaments to the collective suffering they endured. The survivors that are with us and those who have passed on, their stories, their lives, their families and communities remain as living proof of their survival. They can help us understand this critical moment as also marked by possibility, by a number of openings in our understandings of collective memory and the possibilities for commemoration. We are at a watershed moment that has built upon decades of work to claim our history.
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