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Minister of State Michael Roth to visit Kraków and Auschwitz
Michael Roth, Minister of State for Europe, will visit Kraków and Auschwitz on 1 and 2 August.
He will attend the commemorative events marking the 75th anniversary of the liquidation of the so‑called “gypsy camp” in Auschwitz-Birkenau. European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day on 2 August commemorates the murder of the last remaining over 4000 Sinti and Roma in Auschwitz-Birkenau on 2 August 1944, most of whom were women, children and older people deemed “unfit for work”.
Roth will give a speech at a commemorative event organised by the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma and the Association of Roma in Poland in cooperation with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, with financial support from the Federal Foreign Office. He will also open the international youth event, Dikh he na bister (Look and Don’t Forget), with European Commissioner Věra Jourová.
On 1 August, Minister of State Roth will award the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany to Bronisława Horowitz-Karakulska, the last survivor in Poland of the Jews saved by Oskar Schindler. Furthermore, he will hold talks with the Voivode of Lesser Poland and attend the event commemorating the 75th anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Uprising.
In the run‑up to his visit, the Minister of State for Europe said:
For too long, we repressed the genocide of over 500,000 Sinti and Roma from our memory of the past and allowed Europe’s largest ethnic minority to be pushed to the margins of our society. It is our responsibility to ensure that the victims’ suffering is not forgotten and that anti‑Gypsy prejudices disappear from people’s minds. Sinti and Roma are part of us. The united Europe stands for diversity. And we must defend Europe even more resolutely against its enemies – against nationalism, isolationism and racism.