In Lackenbach (district of Oberpullendorf) the Romnija and Roma and Sinti murdered by the Nazis were commemorated on Saturday. Since 1984, a memorial in the community commemorates the so-called “Gypsy detention camp”. For many it was the last stop before being deported to concentration camps and murdered.
Numerous representatives of politics, the church, the Austrian Roma cultural association and the students of the Oberpullendorf high school gathered on Saturday for the traditional joint commemoration at the memorial site in Lackenbach. The president of the Austrian Roma cultural association and co-organizer Christian Klippl also mentioned his personal connection to the memorial: “Well, we have many relatives who have taken a bad lot from here. And that is why for me Lackenbach it’s on the one hand a place of memory and also a place, a crime scene, which to me should shock people every year about what happened so long ago.”
More than 4,000 Roma and Sinti were imprisoned in Lackenbach from 1940 to 1945. Only 300 to 400 people survived to see the camp liberated by Soviet troops in April 1945.
Sobotka stressed the importance of education
The keynote speaker at the commemorative event was the President of the National Council Wolfgang Sobotka (ÖVP). Above all, he stressed education as an essential means against anti-Gypsyism and discrimination. “We see it in our studies that educated young people are less anti-Gypsy and less anti-Semitic. Long and negative cultural traditions can only be answered with education,” said the president of the National Council. “People’s multilingualism is a gift and we should all be able to fully understand it.”
Dunst emphasized the culture of remembrance
The events and actions that were done to the numerous Roma during the Nazi era should be shown again and again and never forgotten, said state parliament speaker Verena Dunst (SPÖ). “What happened then must never happen again. This is why the culture of remembrance is very, very important”. According to Dunst, you have to face the story and deal with it.
The genocide of Roma and Sinti must not be forgotten, said National Councilor Nikolaus Berlakovich (ÖVP). Racism, incitement to hatred against minorities, anti-Semitism and xenophobia have no place in our society, said ÖVP spokesman for the national parliament Patrik Fazekas.
