31/07/2026 Equality and Non-Discrimination
Ahead of the European Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma, Georgios Stamatis (Greece, EPP/CD), PACE General Rapporteur on Roma and Travellers, made the following statement:
“On 2 August, we honour the memory of the 4,300 Roma and Sinti men, women and children murdered in a single night at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the half a million Roma and Sinti lives lost in the Holocaust. We do this every year, and yet, more than eighty years on, this chapter of history remains largely untold in our schools, our museums, our public life."
This silence is not accidental. "It is the same silence that allowed dehumanising narratives to take hold before the Holocaust, and it continues, in different forms, to fuel discrimination against Roma and Sinti communities today, in education, housing and employment. As I stressed on International Romani Day, remembrance and knowledge of the past are essential to combat prejudice at its root."
Mr Stamatis recalled that this conviction led him, earlier this year, to convene a parliamentary conference in Athens, bringing together parliamentarians, historians, Roma civil society and international experts, including the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, to examine how memory and heritage can be turned into concrete tools against antigypsyism. Its conclusions are now informing a report that he hopes will lead PACE to adopt a resolution on the issue.
"I call on national parliaments to ensure that the history of the Roma and Sinti Holocaust is fully integrated into school curricula. A memorial day matters only if it shapes what happens the rest of the year. Teaching this history is how remembrance becomes protection, and how we prevent hatred and discrimination from taking root again."
A delegation of 11 parliamentarians, led by PACE President Petra Bayr, will take part in an event at Auschwitz-Birkenau on 2 August to mark the 82nd anniversary of the European Holocaust Memorial Day for Roma and Sinti.