Gabi Muntean of Pavee Point’s Roma Project addressed the Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration at Dublin’s Mansion House on Sunday 29th January.
“Hundreds and thousands of Roma and Sinti people were rounded up, forced into ghettos and deported to concentration and death camps, ” she said, “They wore an identifying black triangle on their camp uniforms where they subjected to brutality, starvation, disease, medical experiments or gassed to death.”
Six candles were lit in memory of the 6 million Jews who were annihilated in the Holocaust. People with disabilities who were murdered, forcibly sterilised and starved to death by doctors and others were also remembered
Other victims of the Holocaust were Poles, Slavs and other Ethnic minorities who were murdered and displaced. Homosexual men and women were persecuted and murdered during the Holocaust because of their sexual orientation. Political victims were also remembered – Communists, Socialists, Trade Unionists and other opponents of the Nazi regime. Christians were also targeted, persecuted and murdered.
Two Roma representatives – Daniel Spriache, whose grandfather survived the Transnistria camps, and Diana Paun were asked to light commemorative candles at Sunday’s ceremony. Read more and watch video about the Roma Holocaust here.
