On 2 August, Europe commemorates Holocaust Remembrance Day for Roma and Sinti, a day of silent remembrance, reminder and responsibility. It commemorates the suffering and systematic extermination of around 500,000 Roma and Sinti in Nazi-occupied Europe. A long-neglected group of victims of the Holocaust, whose history was often ignored and whose pain was often ignored.

The commemoration focuses on the night of 2 to 3 August 1944: on this night, over 4,000 Roma and Sinti, including many children, women and elderly people, were murdered in the so-called ‘Gypsy camp’ of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. This cruel liquidation ended the lives of countless families. It was the final act of a systematic genocide that the Nazi regime had planned and carried out for years.

In 2015, the European Parliament officially declared 2 August a day of remembrance in order to strengthen the collective European memory and give the history of these people a worthy place in Europe’s culture of remembrance.

As the Embassy for Roma People of the Sovereign Order of Malta, we stand alongside all those who are mourning today and all those who work every day for justice, recognition and peaceful coexistence. The dignity and equality of all people are the cornerstones of our actions. Remembering the victims of the Porajmos, as many Roma themselves call the genocide, is our mission for the present and the future.

Antiziganism is not a thing of the past, but a reality that we in Europe must continue to confront. Hatred begins with words, marginalisation with looks and ends where remembrance and vigilance fail. That is why we must remember today in order to protect tomorrow.

We call on all people of good will to join us in this responsibility. In prayer, in remembrance, in our commitment to justice and in our daily defence against all forms of racism and discrimination.

May the souls of the victims rest in peace – and may we protect the living through our actions.