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European Parliament marks Roma genocide for first time

02 February 2011, 18:12 CET
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(BRUSSELS) - The European Parliament held for the first time Wednesday a commemoration to recognise the genocide of hundreds of thousands of minority Roma during World War II.

"One third of the people held at Auschwitz were Roma, but most Europeans do not know this," said parliament speaker Jerzy Buzek, noting that only "a few European states have officially recognised the Roma genocide."

Buzek said the "time has come" for the massacre to be recognised at the European level.

The 736-member assembly's event came one week after the German parliament marked the Roma genocide for the first time by inviting a survivor as a guest of honour at the official Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations.

Between 220,000 and 500,000 Roma were exterminated by the Nazis, but their plight has long been overshadowed by the killing of six million Jews in the Holocaust.

The Roma genocide has been "forgotten by our collective memory for too long," said Green Euro MP Catherine Greze, who had pushed for the remembrance day along with Hungarian, Romanian and German colleagues.

An estimated 10 million to 12 million Roma or Gypsies live in Europe, generally in extreme poverty and with a lack of education opportunities in many EU states.

Their continuing plight came into sharp focus last year when France expelled hundreds of Roma back to Romania and Bulgaria over concerns about crime and security.

The French policy sparked an EU-wide debate about the failed integration of Roma across the 27-nation bloc.

It also provoked a public row between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso after the EU executive threatened to take legal action against Paris.


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