On August 2, the “Zigeunerlager”–– the Gypsy camp––at Auschwitz was “liquidated” when approximately 3,000 Roma and Sinti were murdered in one night. This occurred after, according to a guidebook sold by the Auschwitz Museum, there were 20,943 Roma (Gypsies) who were gassed in the Krema V gas chamber; their bodies were burned in the pits adjacent to Krema V. Also, after, in May of that year, the Roma and Sinti in the camp had attempted to rebel, fighting with stones, with makeshift tools, anything they could find. Ultimately, their were pushed back in it barracks, which were barricaded closed. Although camp records are somewhat unclear, according to some scholars, most probably those same fighters, men, women, and children, were those who were murdered on August 2.

Altogether, at least 500,000, and possibly as many as 2,000,000 Roma and Sinti, were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators at camps throughout Europe, and in the countryside, where mass graves are still being uncovered. 

And yet, there is still no official recognition of this genocide against Roma and Sinti. When we ask to be included each year in the UN’s official Holocaust remembrance ceremony, we are refused the opportunity to remember our dead in the heart of the world’s most broad-based organization. 

But remember them we do, though the world’s political authorities prefer they remain conveniently hidden.

Listen to the students of the Gandhi Roma school in Hungary sing the Romani anthem, which remembers that

Once I had a large family

They were murdered by the Black legions

Ai, Romale

Ai, Chavale

(Oh, Roma, Oh, Children)