Germany opened a long-awaited memorial on Wednesday to the hundreds of thousands of Gypsies, or Roma, who were killed by the Nazis in what one survivor called “the forgotten Holocaust” – and pledged to fight the discrimination the minority still faces in Europe today.
Panels detailing the Nazis’ persecution of the minority surround the memorial, which is located across the road from the Reichstag, Germany’s Parliament building, and close to memorials to the Nazis’ Jewish and gay victims that have been inaugurated in recent years.
Gypsies were subjected to racial discrimination from the early days of Nazi rule. Before Berlin hosted the 1936 Olympic games, hundreds were rounded up and interned; and in 1938, SS chief Heinrich Himmler set up a central office for the persecution of Gypsies – also known as Sinti and Roma.
It’s not clear exactly how many Gypsies were killed during the Holocaust. Estimates range from 220,000 to more than 500,000.
Their fate drew little attention as post-second world war Germany began to come to terms with the Nazis’ crimes, primarily focusing on the slaughter of some six million Jews.