[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 16782]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            MASS MURDER OF ROMA AT AUSCHWITZ SIXTY YEARS AGO

  Mr. CAMPBELL. Madam President, during World War II, some 23,000 Roma 
were sent to Auschwitz, mostly from Germany, Austria, and the occupied 
Czech lands. Sixty years ago, on the night of August 2 and 3, the order 
was given to liquidate the ``Gypsy Camp'' at Auschwitz. Over the course 
of that night, 2,898 men, women, and children were put to death in the 
gas chambers. In all, an estimated 18,000 Roma died at Auschwitz-
Birkenau.
  During the intervening years, Aug. 2 and 3 have become days to 
remember the Porrajmos, the Romani word that means ``the Devouring,'' 
and to mourn the Romani losses of the Holocaust.
  As the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has suggested, Roma are 
``understudied victims'' of the Nazis. What we don't know about the 
Romani experiences during the war is far greater than what is known.
  But we do know that the fate of the Roma varied from country to 
county, and depended on many factors. We know that, in addition to the 
atrocities in Auschwitz, thousands of Roma were gassed at Chelmno. We 
know that an estimated 90 percent of Croatia's Romani population--tens 
of thousands of people--were murdered. We know that approximately 
25,000 Roma were deported by the Romanian regime to Transnistria in 
1942, where some 19,000 of them perished there in unspeakable 
conditions. We know that in many places, such as Hungary, Roma were 
simply executed at the village edge and dumped into mass graves. We 
know that in Slovakia, Roma were put into forced labor camps, and that 
in France, Roma were kept in internment camps for fully a year after 
the war ended.
  Still, far more research remains to be done in this field, especially 
with newly available archives like those from the Lety concentration 
camp in the Czech Republic. I commend the Holocaust Museum for the 
efforts it has made to shed light on this still dark corner of the 
past, and I welcome the work of nongovernmental organizations, such as 
the Budapest-based Roma Press Center, for collecting the memories of 
survivors.
  I do not think I can overstate the consequences of the Porrajmos. 
Some scholars estimate that as many as half of Europe's Romani minority 
perished. For individuals, for families, and for surviving communities, 
those losses were devastating. Tragically, the post-war treatment of 
Roma compounded one set of injustices with others. Those who were most 
directly involved in developing the Nationalist-Socialist framework for 
the racial persecution of Roma--Robert Ritter and Eva Justin--were 
never brought to justice for their crimes and were allowed to continue 
their medical careers after the war. The investigative files on 
Ritter--including evidence regarding his role in the forced 
sterilization of Roma--were destroyed. German courts refused to 
recognize, until 1963, that the persecution of Roma based on their 
ethnic identity began at least as early as 1938. By the time of the 
1963 ruling, many Romani survivors had already died.
  During my years of service on the leadership of the Helsinki 
Commission, I have been struck by the tragic plight of Roma throughout 
the OSCE region. It is not surprising that, given the long history of 
their persecution, Roma continue to fight racism and discrimination 
today. I commend Slovakia for adopting comprehensive antidiscrimination 
legislation in May. As the OSCE participating states prepare for a 
major conference on racism, discrimination, and xenophobia, to be held 
in September, I hope they will be prepared to address the persistent 
manifestations of racism against Roma--manifestations that often carry 
echoes of the Holocaust.

                          ____________________