The Holocaust memorial is located in central Bucharest, the capital of Romania. But for a long time, the country had not planned to include the Roma and Sinti people murdered during the Holocaust here. It was only pressure from local civil society groups that eventually saw a Roma wheel in stone added, to commemorate the thousands of Roma people deported to their deaths in Transnistria during World War II.
The European Day of Remembrance for the Genocide of Sinti and Roma has been observed annually on August 2 since 2015 when the European Parliament recognized the date.
Two days before the official memorial day, Romania’s new president Nicusor Dan and other notable locals participated in an event in Bucharest commemorating the day.
There were a large number of security personnel deployed in Bucharest that day because in the increasingly polarized political climate, precautions were needed to protect a minority that’s often still scapegoated in Romania and elsewhere.
Romania grappling with history
The presence of the new president, a pro-European candidate who beat right-wing candidateGeorge Simion in May 2025 elections, was more than just symbolic. It was an appeal: Romania needs to grapple with its own history properly and it needs a basic change in a public discourse often marred by hate speech and racism.
The two-hour ceremony brought together representatives from the president’s office and government, European and Romanian diplomats and members of the Roma community. Between bureaucratic sobriety and the formalities, there were also powerful speeches that directly connected local and current history.
Petre-Florin Manole, Romania’s labor minister, argued that the country’s budget deficit is often discussed more than right-wing extremism. “But the democratic deficit is actually the most dangerous,” Manole said. “It cannot be remedied with isolated measures. It takes decades.”
Manole wasn’t just speaking as a cabinet member, he is also a member of the Roma minority. In fact, he’s the first Roma in the history of democratic Romania to lead a ministry.
The long silence on this topic in Romanian society had rendered the victims invisible, added Mircea Dumitru, the vice-president of the cultural forum, the Romanian Academy. This commemoration was not only about a historical wound but also a warning, a reminder of what can happen “when hatred becomes law,” he said.
Back then people were “robbed of their freedom, their dignity and their lives — solely because of their identity, their ethnicity. That is, what they were and could not change,” Dumitru continued.
The Roma, a people “devoured”
In Romania, “porajmos” is the word used for the genocide of European Roma during the Nazi period. It means “swallowing whole,” “destroyed” or “devoured.” It is estimated that up to 500,000 Sinti and Roma right across Europe were murdered by the Nazis and their allies during World War II.
In Romania itself, one of German leader Adolf Hitler’s allies, Ion Antonescu, had over 25,000 Roma deported from Romania to Transnistria. They were described as “asocial” or “nomadic” and sent off in freight wagons without food or water. Many died from hunger, disease or the results of violence.
“But these 25,000 victims of the Holocaust don’t seem to have been enough [for some people],” said Nicolae Paun, one of the only Roma politicians in the Romanian parliament. Even today there are groups in Europe with racist and xenophobic slogans against which the Roma must defend themselves, he noted.
Until 2004, when the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania (more commonly referred to as the Elie Wiesel Commission) published its report acknowledging Romania’s involvement in the Holocaust,the topic wasn’t openly discussed in the country. It was barely mentioned in political discourse and wasn’t taught at schools.
“It is our duty to know and to acknowledge our own history,” Dan declared in his speech. Romania tends to externalize its own problems instead of addressing them properly. Deep-rooted, discriminatory attitudes still exist and must be changed, he said.
There are laws in Romania that prohibit racist or antisemitic statements or the glorification of war criminals, Manole said. But they haven’t been properly enforced for years.
“Diversity is a resource, not a reason for hatred,” commented Iulian Paraschiv, the country’s national coordinator for Roma inclusion policies. In fact, he pointed out the Roma are one the youngest demographic groups in Romania and have a potential that politics and business ignore at their peril.
The Roma have been “part of the Romanian nation, since the modern nation state was founded,” Paraschiv said.
The commemoration on August 2 isn’t just about genocide though, it’s also a reminder of those who resisted. In May 1944, prisoners armed with shovels and other tools fought back against those who would try to kill them. The memorial day also honors those who survived.
Things are changing, as Catalin-Zamfir Manea, a member of the Roma party in Romania, pointed out. A new elective in local schools will look at the topic of Roma slavery and deportation and the first national museum of Roma culture are both examples, the politician said.
“Whether Roma or not, children must know who we are and what happened,” Manea argued.
Romania’s Foreign Minister Oana Toiu spoke about her time as a volunteer at summer camps for Roma children 20 years ago. “I first learned many things about these historical events there,” she said. “They were missing from my schoolbooks, from my parents’ house, from public debate.”
This is important because humans need to learn where discrimination begins, she explained.
Germany’s ambassador to Romania, Angela Ganninger, was also in attendance. She spoke about the night of August 2, 1944, when around 4,300 Sinti and Roma — mostly children, women and elderly — were gassed to death at the Auschwitz concentration camp. They were the last victims of the Nazis.
“It is our duty not only to preserve their stories, but to pass them on — especially in times of disinformation and division,” Ganninger said in her speech, pointing out that Roma and Sinti people are still discriminated against today, including in Germany.
Germany has shown that admitting guilt does not weaken a society but strengthens it, she said. “Never again begins today,” the German ambassador concluded.
This story was originally published in German.
