Polish upper-house Speaker Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska said at the event that "the Nazis aimed to annihilate the nation of Eternal Wanderers at Auschwitz once and for all."
"But you continue your proud journey through the history of Europe and the world," she added, addressing the international Roma community.
Bärbel Bas, the head of Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, said Auschwitz represents "the greatest crime that people have ever committed against people," including Sinti and Roma victims, German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported.
She said it was "a bitter realization" that in postwar Germany, the genocide of the Sinti and Roma was "concealed and denied" and hardly any perpetrators were brought to justice, according to the dw.com news website.
Roma Holocaust Memorial Day is held every year at Auschwitz on August 2, the anniversary of the killing of more than 4,000 Roma and Sinti prisoners, including women and children, in the camp’s gas chambers in 1944.
The event usually brings together former Auschwitz prisoners from various countries as well as Polish and foreign government officials and diplomats.
Only 2,000 of the some 23,000 Roma and Sinti from 14 countries who were imprisoned at Auschwitz survived the ordeal, according to some estimates.
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Source: IAR, PAP, dw.com
