Mehmet Daimagüler

Video statement on the occasion of 2 August 2024, Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma

August 2 is an incredibly important day. It is an important day for the Sinti and Roma minority, but also an important day for Germany. For our country.

On this day, we commemorate the thousands and thousands of people who were murdered in the Third Reich. They were not killed in the German name, but by Germans. By our ancestors. They were people who were our neighbors. Who were our friends. Who were our colleagues. We have these people on our conscience.

And now we are commemorating them on August 2, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day for Sinti and Roma. And we have to be incredibly careful that this commemoration does not remain in the past. Not take place in a vacuum. Not walled off in the history books, but that we ask ourselves the question: ‘What does this mean for here and now? What does this mean for us as a country, as a society? What do we have to do?’ Because let’s be honest: this country only recognized the genocide very, very late and only half-heartedly. Only after a long, long struggle by the civil rights movement. After a hunger strike. And even today, quite a few people still simply deny it.

And we have to deal with antiziganism in everyday life. And not just on the street, but also when we go to the authorities. It is therefore all the more important that we understand that the past is not something we can push away. Something we can assign to our ancestors, most of whom are dead. Rather, it is something that must bind us. And what does that mean in concrete terms? Specifically, it means: We must take action against antiziganism and racism. We have to take this issue seriously. We have to listen. We need to work on our laws. We need to work on the education and training of our police officers and civil servants.

Above all, however, we must understand that the Sinti and Roma, the people who are not only personally affected, but that it is these people to whom we must listen, with whom we must work together. Together for a better country, for a better future. And we can be grateful for that as a country. As a representative of politics, I am. I am grateful to the people from the minority for giving us the chance, for giving us the confidence that we will do better in the future. And we want to work on that together.