Romani Rose, the chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, highlighted on behalf of the organizers a key message of the commemoration for the 75th anniversary: “It is the legacy of all the victims of the Holocaust, all the people murdered by the Nazis, which we must carry with us. We must pass on this legacy to future generations. With the many young people who are here today, I have no doubt that we will succeed. Today, we are challenged to take responsibility for democracy and the rule of law, for human rights and human dignity. Now, and in the future.”
Rev. Jesse Jackson, Romani Rose and Roman Kwiatkowski, chair of the Association of Roma in Poland, signed together a Call-To-Action.
“For the first time, the representatives of the American Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Movement of Sinti and Roma in Europe are jointly appealing from this place to the governments of the global community and supranational organizations to combat consistently any form of racism, antigypsyism and anti-Semitism. We demand political and social justice and thus dignity for all our people. Together we carry the legacy of the millions of Holocaust victims. We must put the moral and ethical values of our democracies at the centre of our actions. We must stand together for democracy and the rule of law. We must stand together for our shared human values.”
The commemoration ceremony concluded in the afternoon at the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer in Oswiecim with speeches by EU Commissioner Vera Jourova, German Minister of State Michael Roth, Chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, Ambassador George Santer, and representatives of the Council of Europe, OSCE, and European Parliament.