Some 82 years after the mass murder of Roma and Sinti at Auschwitz-Birkenau, anti-Roma hate persists. Today’s Roma Holocaust Memorial Day is a warning that Europe is still failing to turn the lessons of history into political reality.
This September, Saxony-Anhalt goes to the polls, with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) polling above 40 per cent and within reach of an outright majority. Over 80 years since more than 4,300 Roma and Sinti were murdered during the liquidation of the “Zigeunerlager” at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, a far-right party that openly stigmatises and singles out Roma citizens is yet again on the rise in Germany. In April 2026, AfD politician Enxhi Seli-Zacharias led party colleagues through a German city, handing brooms to residents she took to be Sinti and Roma and filming them as they swept the pavement, telling one woman: “Germans have had enough—look what this looks like.”
Over a decade ago, on the occasion of 2 August, I wrote a short text for a leading Polish newspaper to build visibility around the Roma Holocaust. It was 2014, the 70th anniversary, and I was in my prime as a Roma youth activist. That year, as part of the “Dikh he na bister” (Look and don’t forget) initiative organised by the International Roma Youth Network “ternYpe”, we brought over 1,000 young Roma and non-Roma from 25 countries to Krakow and Auschwitz. It was the largest gathering of its kind, and it helped galvanise political support: it is not an overstatement to say this mobilisation greatly contributed to the recognition of 2 August as European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day by the European Parliament the following year.
There has undeniably been progress since then. Following the 2015 European Parliament declaration, more countries now officially recognise 2 August and hold institutional commemorations on the day. Memorial sites have expanded too, including a new memorial at the former extermination site in Lety u PĂsku, Czech Republic—infamous for the pig farm that occupied the grounds until 2018. Its demolition in 2022 finally made space for a memorial worthy of the victims.
Educational initiatives have multiplied too, the result of several converging factors. On the one hand, Roma voices have become increasingly present in shaping remembrance—Roma scholars and researchers, Roma activists across generations, geographies and nationalities, and Roma artists and cultural producers have stubbornly insisted on the importance of marking the Roma Holocaust. On the other hand, the 2020 report by the Council of Europe, the Roma Education Fund and the Georg Eckert Institute found that Roma are still largely absent from European school curricula. When they do appear, they are presented primarily as passive victims, with little recognition of their agency, history or resistance. In response, CoE member states adopted a resolution encouraging the revision of textbooks and the inclusion of Roma in national canons of history. The EU, UN and OSCE have all taken symbolic steps in this direction too, whether by developing teaching materials, hosting inclusive remembrance events or promoting “good practices”.
But these gains are incomplete, and good intentions have not yet delivered tangible results.
The Roma Holocaust remains a footnote in mainstream narratives of the Second World War. Historians estimate that over 500,000 Roma and Sinti were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators. And yet, Roma victims are too often portrayed either through the lens of prejudice—with stereotypes about criminality or antisocial behaviour subtly reinforcing the very logic that justified the persecution of Roma—or as anonymous victims stripped of agency and resistance. The meaningful involvement of Roma in Holocaust museums, memorials and political boards is anecdotal. Roma testimonies and archives are scattered and often inaccessible, making it difficult for scholars and family members alike to consult vital records. Research on the Roma Holocaust is underfunded, while hundreds of its sites across Europe are still unmarked and disrespected.
What’s worse, racism against Roma—which enabled the genocide to happen in the first place—continues to shape the lives of Roma in Europe, and in recent years it has intensified. Roma face hate speech, police violence, and segregated housing and schooling. Anti-Roma prejudice remains widespread and dangerously entrenched. A recent report by MIA, Germany’s national body for reporting racism against Roma, disclosed that such cases jumped in Germany in 2025, with 2,076 logged. In Greece and Slovenia, Roma endure state-sponsored surveillance and the securitisation of whole neighbourhoods, and politicians in Portugal and Hungary scapegoat Roma for political gain.
But it is not just Roma. It seems we are all moving from bad to worse, because the deeper lessons of history have not been translated into political reality.
Democratic standards are under pressure. Nationalism, racism, conspiracy theories and authoritarian politics are once again entering mainstream public discourse. Hate is becoming normalised, not at the margins of politics but at its centre. Historical revisionism and Holocaust denial are challenging factual understanding of the past and reshaping the social consensus around its horrors. AI is introducing another, still unclear layer of consequences for remembrance culture—whether through deepfakes, tampering with archival materials or the proliferation of disinformation.
In that article from 2014, I wrote about how, while researching in the archives of the Auschwitz Museum, I discovered the record of Anna Mirga—a Roma woman bearing my own name and surname who perished in Auschwitz. Among the records, I found dozens of other Roma victims with the same surname as my own, and first names that are familiar to me because of my cousins, uncles and grandparents. That discovery transformed history from something abstract into something profoundly personal. It became impossible not to ask: Had I lived 80 years earlier, could that have been me?
That question has never left me. Since becoming a mother, the reflection has become even more terrifying:Â Could that have been my children?
This is why, this year, for me, 2 August is not only a day of remembrance—it is a warning. Fascism is never simply a chapter in history books. It begins with words, stereotypes, indifference and the gradual erosion of democratic values. Honouring those who were murdered is not enough. We must also recognise how quickly democratic societies can unravel when prejudice, dehumanisation and political extremism become accepted as ordinary.
