By: L. B., G. B.
On August 6th, 2021, a representative of the Office for Nationalities attended events commemorating the Roma victims of the genocide in the Second World War.
In memory of the Roma victims of genocide during the Second World War, at the Garden of Memories and Comradeship in Petanjci in the Municipality of Tišina prof. Dr Dragoljub Acković, Secretary General of the European Roma Union, planted a mountain maple tree. Institution Dr Šiftar Foundation initiated this event, which was organised in cooperation with the Roma Association of Slovenia.
A round table on the situation and perspectives, expectations of the Roma in their future development and life in Europe was held in Murska Sobota. At the beginning, Jožek Horvat Muc addressed the audience, followed by the keynote speaker Miha Lobnik, Advocate of the Principle of Equality, who emphasised the importance of preserving the memory of events from the past. He noted that in World War II, among many others, half a million Roma and Sinti lost their lives. The goal of these inconceivable hostile acts was the final erasure of Roma and Sinti and others. When recalling Porajmos, it must be strongly emphasised that these acts were cruelly inhuman and that every effort must be made to ensure that they never happen again.
Other speakers also took part in the round table: prof. Dr Dragoljub Acković, member of the Parliament of the Republic of Serbia; doc. Dr Vera Klopčič, honorary member of the Roma Association of Slovenia; MSc Orhan Galjus, Vice President of the European Roma Association; MSc Emina Schemo, Vice-President of the European Roma Union and Adviser to the Ministry of the Political System and Relations between the Communities of the Republic of Northern Macedonia; MSc Vita Zalar, assistant at the Institute for Cultural History of the Scientific Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts; and Matjaž Gruden, director for democratic participation at the Council of Europe, who addressed the audience via video.
In the conversation, they stressed the importance of remembering past events, which must serve as a reminder to present and future generations that they must never be repeated. They pointed out the exclusion of members of the Roma community from society and said that much remains to be done to actually improve their position in society.
After the discussion, a wreath-laying ceremony was held at the memorial plaque “In memory of the Roma victims of the Holocaust in the Second World War 1941-1945” in the courtyard of the former School of Economics in Murska Sobota.
In all this, it strikes the eye that the manifestation involved mainly leftists, who spoke about the genocide against the Roma, but nothing about who committed the genocide. There has still been no decent burial of Roma killed by communists in Ljubljana.