Following President Jean-Claude Juncker‘s statement on the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day 2019, Soraya Post, Member of the European Parliament for the Feminist Initiative (Sweden) stated that:
“I am sad and disappointed that Jean-Claude Juncker once again only mentions the Jewish victims of the Holocaust in his statement on the Holocaust Remembrance Day 2019. Once again he fails to be inclusive, fails to take responsibility and fails to remember all the victims of the Holocaust. This is the 4th year that I am reminding him of this issue. As the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker has to protect the rights of all the inhabitants of Europe and the European Union’s fundamental values such as equality. He should not deny the Roma people to be a part of the history of Europe, we need to build a common European history together. He should not deny survivors and their families the right to be remembered.”
“6 million Jewish people were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe. However, there were also other groups – based on their ethnicity, on their beliefs or on sexual orientations – that were persecuted, tortured, imprisoned and murdered by the Nazis. Roma people were the second-largest group of people killed because of their ethnicity during the Holocaust; around 500 000 – 1 million Roma people were killed by the Nazis. Other groups of victims were people with mental or physical disabilities, LGBTI-people, communists, trade unionists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, anarchists, political opponents and other resistance activists. All victims faced the same suffering, the same fate and the same ending by the same perpetrator,” Soraya Post pointed out.
“On the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27 January, we should remember and honour all the people that were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust and reinstate our commitment to fight anti-Semitism, anti-Gypsyism, racism, homophobia and all other forms of intolerance. We must not stay silent and indifferent, raising our voices is not only the right thing to do but our joint responsibility as well. We cannot forget what happened seven decades ago and we cannot let hate dominate Europe again,” she concluded.
