Reminders of the Holocaust - Roma are still subject to racism

TWO reminders of the horror of the Holocaust emerged yesterday, one in the German town of Luneberg near Hamburg; the other in Dublin.

While German prosecutors decided that Oskar Groening, a former Nazi SS guard known as the ‘Bookkeeper of Auschwitz’, now 96, is fit to serve out his sentence, President Higgins’ wife, Sabina, was guest of honour at a gathering of Roma to hear how 500,000 of that community were slaughtered in the gas chambers, and of their long struggle to be recognised as victims of the Holocaust.

Like any decent human being, Ms Higgins was moved to tears as she heard how 3,000 Roma were exterminated in the gas chambers of Auschwitz on a single day — August 2, 1944.