Today marks the 79th anniversary of the Uprising of the Roma people as another victim and target of Nazism that is very little talked about in public. On May 15, the highest command of the Nazi police made a decision to kill all the prisoners in the so-called "Gypsy camp", in order to free up space for the transport of Jews from Hungary. On the night of May 16, 1944, about 6,000 Roma from the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, facing extermination, rose up in a desperate attempt to save their lives and resist the German SS.
The Roma revolt with improvised weapons, fighting the soldiers with stones, iron pipes, wooden panels, barbed wire and smuggled planks. They managed to repel an attack by a hundred German soldiers. They manage to postpone the extinction. The next day, the German army, regrouped and heavily armed, put down the uprising. Half of the 6,000 detainees were sent to other camps, and the rest were killed on August 2.
However, such forms of resistance are largely not mentioned, nor are they adequately marked in today's commemorations dedicated to the fight against fascism. In the past years, initiatives by Roma activists began to appear, recalling the historical resistance of the Roma people in the brutal Nazi camps and (following the example of other movements) actualizing the topic of reparations for past and current racist violence.
However, the failure of modern Europe in relation to the Holocaust against the Roma must be stated. Various Holocaust reparations programs adopted over the years provide for monetary compensation to certain groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, the disabled and LGBT victims – some of which include the Roma. However, reparations programs exclusively for Roma victims have not yet been adopted.
May 16 is a day to commemorate the resistance of the Roma, the lesser-known and forgotten target of Nazi Germany's racist policies.
