2 August 2020
Agnes Daroczi
Founder of Romedia Foundation
Statement on the occasion of the European Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma 2020
76 years after the Holocaust, I remember over half a million Roma and Sinti who were murdered. I come from Hungary, which was the last ally of Nazi Germany. Here, in Hungary, these atrocities were mentioned among family, at best.
My grandfather was taken for forced labor, as a soldier barely a few weeks before liberation. While he was on the front, his family stayed in their house where a number on the front door showed how many people live there, waiting to be deported to the concentration camp any moment.
These are the experiences of my parents and grandparents. Yet, the entire country kept quiet about this for over fifty years.
Historians barely wrote a sentence about the suffering of Roma during the Holocaust. Then, a project in 2000 financed by the United States provided non-financial support to meet with survivors. We conducted over 3000 interviews and shed light on at least 23 places of mass murder and 55 sites of military and agricultural forced labor camps.
Forced labor camps under the watch of German and Hungarian gendarmes.
Auschwitz Birkenau 2.B.E, night of August 2, 1944, 1500 people were transported, then 1400 more. After the uprising of May 16, the able bodied were selected and over 3000 prisoners were murdered in a single night.
We, who are commemorating together the Roma, Sinti and gadjo, we know very well that freedom and democracy are only possible if those are present in the last houses of the most remote villages.
In a democracy and an aging society like ours, it is in everyone’s interest that the young generation receives quality education. Yes, even the Roma youth because they will contribute to our pensions and they will be the next generation of working people. We have to fight together against extreme ideologies and we cannot allow that the nasty ghost of the past to return.
Let’s bow our heads and remember. And let’s say it together: Never Again!
Biografia
Ágnes Daróczi was born in 18 November 1954 in Berettyóújfalu. She holds a degree as secondary school teacher (1978, ELTE BTK), specialized in Hungarian language and literature. Moreover she is a cultural manager, reciter, journalist and minority researcher.
Przemówienia

Sara Bloomfield
Director, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Irmgard Schwaetzer
Chair of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD)

Dr. Josef Schuster
President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany

Dr Annette Schavan
Chair of the Board of Trustees of the EVZ Foundation

Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm
Chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD)

Zeljko Jovanovic
Director of the OSF Roma Initiatives Office

Agnes Daroczi
Founder of Romedia Foundation

Dr Bernd Fabritius
Federal Government Commissioner for Matters Related to Ethnic German Resettlers and National Minorities

Karen Taylor
Chair of the European Network against Racism

Holger Münch
President of the Bundeskriminalamt of Germany

Jamen Gabriela Hrabanova
Director of the ERGO Network

Irvin Mujcic
Survivor of the Srebrencia Genocide

Atanas Stoyanov
Phiren Amenca International Network

Alica Heráková
Spokeperson of the Museum of Romani Culture Brno

Bini Guttmann
President of the European Union of Jewish Students

Ismael Cortés
Member of the Spanish Parliament and Roma Activist

Ethel Brooks
Chair of the European Roma Rights Centre

Loránt Vincze
Member of the European Parliament, FUEN President

Laszlo Teleki
Former member of the National Assembly of Hungary

Luc Jacobs
Ambassador of the Kingdom of Belgium in Poland