Forgiveness means great strength, German Roma Rita Prigmore told the gathering at the former German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp on the International Roma and Sinti Genocide Remembrance Day observed on Thursday.
"It is only forgiveness, which can secure a good future. Hatred poisons life and the future," she stressed.
Some 21,000 Roma and Sinti people were murdered by the Germans in the so-called "Gypsy family camp" (Zigeunerlager) at Auschwitz-Birkenau during World War II. On the night of Aug. 2, 1944, the Germans killed around 4,200 Sinti and Roma in the gas chambers.
Observances marking the 74th anniversary of the liquidation of the Roma camp were held at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi German death camp on Thursday as part of observances marking the International Roma and Sinti Genocide Remembrance Day.
The observances started with a silent march attended by former inmates, Roma representatives from Europe, Polish state officials, parliamentarians, a delegation from the Jewish community, diplomats and young people. Present was also Dunja Mijatovic, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights.
Rita Prigmore, born in 1943, had a twin sister. Both girls were victims of experiments carried out on them by Dr Werner Heyde, who tried to change the colour of their eyes from brown to blue. "My sister Rolanda died a few days after her birth. I survived but I can still feel the consequences of these experiments," she said, stressing she was not embittered.
"But I feel responsible and I have one great wish: I want to make history never repeat itself," she declared, adding that hatred was poisoning our lives and our future. "The future can only be built on agreement," she emphasised.
Polish Deputy PM Beata Szydło stressed that Roma were the third biggest group deported to Birkenau after Jews and Poles. She underlined that "Nazi totalitarianism, which sentenced innocent people to death, must never be forgotten."
The official stressed that Nazi propaganda wanted the world to forget, but added that "we remember."
"Our presence here is proof of this. We will never stop reminding about this as a warning," she said.
Dunja Mijatovic stressed that "even in a modern Europe, there are countries, which approve actions by their authorities sending police to persecute Roma people, while neo-Nazi gangs throw them out of their homes." She added that politicians often belittle acts which are a brutal violation of human rights.
She emphasised that it is the duty of politicians, intellectuals and teachers to stop the wave of hatred, and declared that holding the post of Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, she will constantly remind state authorities about the need to remember, protect and prevent.
"I will fight against all signs of anti-Roma attitudes as Roma people have the same human rights as all Europeans," she concluded.
A ceremony marking the International Roma and Sinti Genocide Remembrance Day was also held at the site of the former Litzmannstadt Ghetto in Łódź in central Poland. Present were Roma people, local authorities and clergy.
The Germans opened the Litzmannstadt Ghetto in February 1940 as the second-biggest Jewish ghetto in Poland after Warsaw. An estimated 45,000 people, mainly Jewish intellectuals from Czechoslovakia, Germany, Austria and Luxembourg.
In the years 1941-1942, some 5,000 Roma and Sinti were brought to the ghetto. Later they were transported to the Kulmhof camp in Chelmno nad Nerem (Kulmhof an der Nehr in German) in west-central Poland, where all of them were murdered. According to sources, only 7,000-13,000 of the ghetto's 220,000 inhabitants survived.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 International, PAP
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: PAP | Jacek Bednarczyk