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MEMORIAL AND MUSEUM AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU FORMER GERMAN NAZI
CONCENTRATION AND EXTERMINATION CAMP

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Roma commemorated. The first exhibition in Poland on the Destruction of the Roma

02-08-2001

The Nazis "liquidated" the so-called "Gypsy Family Camp" in Birkenau on the night of August 1-2, 1944, murdering the three thousand Roma who were still alive there. From the winter of 1943 through the summer of 1944, nearly 23,000 Roma from over ten European countries were registered in the camp. Barely a thousand of them survived. On the fifty-seventh anniversary of this crime, the first permanent exhibition in Poland to provide full documentation of the destruction of the Roma was opened at the Museum in Block no. 13 at the Auschwitz I-Main Camp site). A similar exhibition has been in existence for several years at the Center for the Culture and Documentation of the German Sinti and Roma in Heidelberg, Germany.

The new exhibition is a joint project by the Heidelberg Center, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Oświęcim, the Association of Roma in Poland, and other Roma organizations.

A small group of former prisoners was joined at the opening of the exhibition by Romani Rose, chairman of the Center for the Culture and Documentation of the German Sinti and Roma; Roman Kwiatkowski, chairman of the Association of Roma in Poland; Petra Blass, vice-speaker of the Bundestag; Fritz-Rudolf Körper, secretary of state in the German Ministry of Internal Affairs; Dr. Ernst Strasser, Austrian Minister of Internal Affairs; and Professor Władysław Bartoszewski, chairman of the International Auschwitz Council.

The development of the exhibition was sponsored by the government of the Polish Republic; the German foreign ministry; the governments of the German federal Länder; Daimler Chrysler AG; Deutsche Bank AG; Deutscher Sparkassen und Giroverband; Dresdner Bank AG; the Freudenberg Foundation; Manfred Lautenschlager; Sparkasse Heidelberg and Sparkassenverband Baden-Wurttemberg.

It was stressed during the speeches at the opening that the crime of genocide against the Roma can never be allowed to be forgotten. Like the Jews, the Roma were murdered for racial reasons and without regard to age or sex. It is estimated that a total of 250,000 to 500,000 Roma from all over Europe fell victim to the Nazis. Auschwitz and the "Gypsy Family Camp" that was established there became symbols of these tragic events. In the name of his people, Romani Rose thanked the Polish government for its help in preserving the memory of these events and in opening the exhibition. At the same time, he noted that the watercolors painted by the Jewish Auschwitz prisoner Dina Gottliebova on the orders of Dr. Josef Mengele, which depict Roma who were later murdered, are relics and documents of the crime that belong to the site of the death camp and are irreversibly connected with it. The paintings are part of the new exhibition.

Roma commemorated. The first exhibition in Poland on the Destruction of the Roma
Roma commemorated....