Jewish group supports Roma community as it marks genocide memorial day
Sunday marks the anniversary of the killing of 2,897 Roma men, women and children in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1944
Jewish human rights activists have told Britain’s Roma that the community “stands alongside you” ahead of Roma Genocide Remembrance Day on Sunday.
The day marks the anniversary of the killing of 2,897 Roma men, women and children in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1944, and Jewish human rights charity René Cassin said: “We will not forget.”
Acknowledging the shared experience of Nazi persecution, director Mia Hasenson-Gross said she spoke “in solidarity with our Roma neighbours in memory of the many thousands of Roma lives cruelly taken by Nazi atrocities”.
She said: “We will look, and we will not forget. How could we forget Auschwitz? We stand in memory of that terrible day. We stand alongside all those who suffered at the hands of that brutal regime. Our shared experience has taught us the need to stand together in solidarity. We will not forget.”
Hasenson-Gross said the lessons of 1944 were pertinent today “with the persecution of Uyghur Muslims by the Chinese government,” which she said “looks a lot like a new genocide… the greatest memorial we can make to all the victims of genocide is to ensure that it never happens again”.
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