2 August-European Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and DIKH HE NA BISTER

Every year since 2015, on August 2nd the European Union commemorates all 500,000 Sinti and Roma people who were murdered in Nazi-occupied Europe. On that specific date of 1944, the remaining 4200-4300 Sinti and Roma were killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau in the so-called “gipsy family camp” and it has been Roma and Sinti organizations themselves to choose it as a Memorial Day.

On the occasion of the European Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma, the Roma Genocide Remembrance Initiative-Dikh He Na Bister (“Look and Don’t forget” in Romani language) mobilizes every year since 2010 thousands of young Roma and non-Roma across Europe “to advance remembrance, recognition and education about the Roma Genocide” (European Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma).

DIKH HE NA BISTER represents a learning space, a journey through time, an invitation for youth to take action in Holocaust remembrance.  Founded by ternYpe International Roma Youth Network  and co-organized with the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma and in cooperation with the Council of Europe, the initiative of Dikh He Na Bister is a youth event where young people are both participants and organisers and they meet with Holocaust survivors establishing an intergenerational bridge, which encourages youth to take action in the current challenges of antigypsyism spread across Europe in today society.

Overall, even though the recognition by the European Parliament constitutes a key step to value the Roma and Sinti’s cultures and to raise awareness on them, the remembrance, recognition, and education on the Roma Genocide remains an ongoing challenge in which Roma and Sinti youth as well as non-Roma and Sinti young people can participate by deepening their personal knowledge on Roma and Sinti’s histories and to spread it.