2 August 2020
Irmgard Schwaetzer
Chair of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD)
Statement on the occasion of the European Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma 2020
The chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, the chair of the Synod of the EKD, Irmgard Schwaetzer, and the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dr. Josef Schuster, have accompanied the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma to the commemoration ceremony in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
We are stunned in the face and at this place of the industrially planned cold mass murder and it was indeed very important for us to be able to commemorate this day of remembrance, this mass murder of the Roma and Sinti here in Auschwitz and our gratitude indeed goes to Romani Rose, the president of the Central Council of Sinti and Roma in Germany, but also to Dr. Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, for spending this day with us here in Auschwitz.
Statements

Romani Rose
Chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma

Katarina Barley
Vice President of the European Parliament

Helena Dalli
European Commissioner for Equality

Mehmet Daimagüler
Dr. Mehmet Daimagüler, Antigypsyism Commissioner of the Federal Government

Roberta Metsola
Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament

Claudia Roth
Vice President of the German Bundestag

Paul Blokhuis
Dutch State Secretary Paul Blokhuis

Chris J. Lazaris
Amb. Chris J. Lazaris, IHRA Chairman

Fernand des Varennes
UN Special Rapporteur UN minorities

Anna-Nicole Heinrich
President of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD)

Justin Trudeau
Prime Minister of Canada

Roman Kwiatkowski
Chairman of the Association of Roma in Poland

Erich Schneeberger
Deputy Chairman of the Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma and Chairman of the Association of German Sinti and Roma

Timea Junghaus
Executive Director
European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC)

Adam Strauß
Chairman of the Council of German Sinti and Roma in Hesse

Manon Aubry
Manon Aubry, MEP

Adrian-Nicolae Furtuna
Historian at the University of Bucharest

Philomena Franz
Holocaust Survivor

Angelina Kappler
German former Weinkönigin

Marian Kalwary
Chairman of the Association of Jews,
Survivors and Victims of the Second World War