The Holocost Memorial is located in the Central Bucharest, the capital of Romania. But for a long time, the country did not plan to include Roma and Sinty people during Holocost here. It was only pressure from local civilian society groups, which was eventually seen in the stone to a Roma wheel, which was to celebrate the deaths of thousands of Roma people in Transnistria during World War II.
The remembrance of European Day for the massacre of SINTI and ROMA has been seen annually on 2 August 2015, when the European Parliament recognized the date.
Two days before the official Memorial Day, Romania’s new President Nicasore Dan and other ether locals attended an event in Bucharest, which was in the memory of the day.
A large number of security personnel were deployed in Bukharest on that day, as in the polarized political environment, precautions were required to protect a minority that was still raped in Romania and other places.
Romania is struggling with history
The presence of the new President, a pro-Europe-supporter candidate who defeated right-wing Candidartergor Simian in the May 2025 elections, which could be more symbolic. This was an appeal: Romania needs to provoke his own history and requires a basic change in a public discourse married by disgusting speech and racism.
Representatives of the President’s Office and the government, European and Romanian diplomats and members of the Roma community were brought together at the two -hour ceremony. Due to bureaucracy and formalities, there were powerful speeches that were directly associated with local and current history.
Romania’s Labor Minister Petre-Florine Manol argued that the country’s budget deficit is often discussed more than right-wing extremism. “But democratic deficit is actually the most dangerous,” said Manol. “It cannot be overcome with isolated measures. It takes decades.”
Manol was not just speaking as a cabinet member, he is a member of Roma minority. In fact, he is the first Roma in the history of Democratic Romania, who led a ministry.
Long silence on this subject in the Romanian society made the victims invisible, Mirsia Dumitru, the vice president of the cultural forum, added the Romanian Academy. This memory was not only a historical lesion, but a warning, a reminder that it can be a pleasure “when hatred becomes law,” he said.
After this people were looted “their freedom, their dignity and their lives – completely due to their identity, their ethnicity. That is, what they were and could not change,” Dumitru continued.
Roma, a people “consumed”
In Romania, “Porjmos” is a word used for the massacre of European Roma during Nazi period. It means “swallowed,” “destroyed” or “consumed”. It is estimated that 500,000 Sinta and Roma were murdered throughout Europe during World War II and their colleagues during World War II.
In Romania, one of the colleagues of German leader Adolf Hitler, ion Antonsku, had deported more than 25,000 Roma from Romania to Transnisturia. He was described as a “Associal” or “nomad” and sent to cargo wagons without food or water. Many died of hunger, illness or violence as a result.
“But 25,000 victims of Holocost feel that this is not enough [for some people]”One of the only Roma politicians in the Romanian Parliament, Nikole Poon said. Even today there is everything in Europe with racist and zenophobic slogans in Europe against which Roma should defend the content, he said.
As of 2004, when the International Commission (usually referred to as Ellie Visel Commission) on Holocaust in Romania, published its report, in which Romania was not openly discussed in the country, accepting participation in Holocost. This was barely mentioned in the political discourse and was not in school.
Dan announced in his speech, “It is our duty to know and accept our own history.” Romania goes to exterior his problems instead of addressing them. He said that deep roots, discriminatory approaches are still present and should be replaced.
There are laws in Romania that prevent the glory of racist or anti -anti -deficit statements or war criminals, said. But they have not been properly implemented for years.
“Diversity is a resource, not the cause of hatred,” the country’s national coordinator Eulian Paraschak made a comment for the Roma inclusion policies. In fact, he reported that Roma is the youngest demographic group in Romania and has a capacity that politics and business ignore their crisis.
The Paraschar said that Romai is part of the nation in Roma, as the modern nation state was found. ,
On August 2, the memorial is not only about the massacre, although it reminds those who protested. In May 1944, prisoners returned prisoners armed with shovels and other equipment against those who would try to kill them. Memorial Day honors people who were alive.
In Romania, things are changing as Catalin-Zamafir Maneya, a member of the Roma party. The politician said that a new voluntary Roma in local schools will look at the theme of slavery and exile and the first National Museum of Roma Culture is both examples.
“Roma or not, children should know who we are and what happened,” Maneya argued.
Romania’s Foreign Minister Ona Tiu spoke about his time as a volunteer at Summer Camp for Roma children 20 years ago. “I first learned many things about these historical events,” she said. “They were missing from my school books, from my parents’ house, from public debate.”
It is imported by humans, where discrimination begins, it needs to be learned.
German Ambassador to Romania, Angela Ganninger, then what in appearance. He talked about the night of August 2, 1944, when around 4.300 Sint and Roma – mostly children, women and the elderly – were killed in the Aushwitz Concentration Camp. He was the last victim of the Nazis.
Gingar said in his speech, “Not only to preserve their stories, but also to pass them – to pass them in the time of disintegration and division, it is our duty.”
Germany has shown that accepting guilt does not weaken a society, but strengthens it, he said. The German ambassador concluded, “Did not resume today.”
This story was the original published in German.
