Council of Europe pays homage to victims of Roma genocide

The Council of Europe (CoE) on Friday called for renewed action to combat discrimination against Europe's Roma population.

Snezana Samardzic-Markovic, director general of the CoE's Directorate of Democracy, made the call on behalf of Council Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland ahead of Aug. 2, the date when Roma commemorate the killing in 1944 of over 3,000 Roma in a gas chamber at the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

"Seven decades after Auschwitz, anti-Gypsyism is on the rise, and in some member states it has even entered mainstream politics," she said. "The CoE and the entire international community have a responsibility to act against it."

On Friday, the Council observed one minute of silence to mark the 71st anniversary of the killings to pay homage to the victims of the genocide committed against Roma during the Second World War.

It is not known precisely how many Roma were killed during the genocide, but historians estimate that up to 220,000 Roma were murdered, or every fourth European Roma believed to have been living in Europe before the Second World War.

"The Pharrajimos - the Holocaust of the Roma - is by far the biggest tragedy in the history of the Roma," said Gheorghe Raducanu, president of the European Roma and Travellers Forum, before laying a wreath in front of the Holocaust memorial stone at the forecourt of the CoE's building in Strasbourg.

"Today we stand in remembrance of those who were murdered in the darkest hours of history, and we stand united in our resolve to fight anti-Gypsyism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia and other forms of discrimination and prejudice," he continued.

"Remembering the Holocaust is not enough: laws that protect human rights and human dignity must follow, and law enforcement tools must be applied effectively to prevent and punish manifestations of extremist ideology, including anti-Gypsyism," he added.

"The poisonous roots of anti-Gypsyism are very deep indeed," said Samardzic-Markovic. "Under the Nazis, anti-Roma sentiments could easily be exploited for the purposes of the exterminatory policy. It seems that in many countries of Europe they can still be exploited for political purposes today."

Six years ago, the CoE acknowledged the Roma Holocaust as genocide, and invited member states to include the Roma extermination in history teaching in schools. A more formal recognition of the Roma Holocaust could be an important symbolic step in the fight against anti-Gypsyism, she added.

In April, the European Parliament adopted a resolution recognizing "the historical fact of the Roma genocide during World War II," and proposed that Aug. 2 be designated European Day of Remembrance of the Roma Holocaust, a measure which has already been taken by some member states.

In an article published Thursday, Nils Muiznieks, CoE Commissioner for Human Rights, highlighted the existence of a "black hole in European history" concerning the sometimes tragic history of Europe's Roma.

"It is also deeply worrying that some mainstream politicians, in a context of growing populism in Europe, have publicly allowed themselves to condone the Roma Holocaust," he wrote. "In addition to trivializing some of the most horrendous human rights violations of the past, such discourse strengthens and legitimizes present-day anti-Roma racism."