The Uninvited Nation

Next week, the world will commemorate the anniversary of liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp on Holocaust Memorial Day. But at the United Nations in New York, there’s one community that’s been excluded from the guest list. Jake Bowers reports.

The General Assembly Hall of the United Nations in New York, is the biggest stage you can get in world politics. It’s where Presidents and Prime Ministers come to have their say and make their point. If, as Shakespeare once observed, “the world is a stage and it’s people merely players” the General Assembly Hall has seen every international drama going.

On 27 January 2009, the United Nations’ will hold its annual observance of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, the greatest tragedy that ever happened to humankind. But, as ever, the Romany people will not be in the cast, in the audience or even in the building.

“Requests asking why and for inclusion from several Romany agencies, including the Union Romani and the International Romany Union have remained unanswered.” says Texas based Romany activist Ian Hancock. “The one answer that was received consisted of a reminder that the UN had underwritten an exhibit on Roma at the Hungarian Mission, and had hosted the reception of a Romani delegation earlier in the year.”

Hancock says that the theme of the memorial ceremony will be “An Authentic Basis for Hope: Holocaust Remembrance and Education” and that the keynote speaker will be Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, followed by a range of other dignitaries, holocaust survivors and musicians.


Some of the many Romany children who were experimented on and perished in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
“The Holocaust was the implementation of the Final Solution, Hitler’s genocidal programme intended to eradicate the genetic contaminants in his plan to create a master race. Only Jews and Romanies were subject to the Final Solution; both peoples lost the same percentage of their total number.” Says Hancock.“Nothing was done to acknowledge the Romany survivors after 1945. The United Nations’ decision to exclude Romanies from Holocaust remembrance only perpetuates the marginalization of our people in the historical record.”

Historians estimate that between 500,000 and 1,500,000 Romany Gypsies were slaughtered in the Holocaust. In many parts of Nazi Europe up to 70% of the Gypsy population were wiped out.

See Anna Kari’s pictures of Romani Holocaust Survivors:

http://www.annakari.com/portfolio/holocaust.html