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America’s Jesse Jackson to attend Auschwitz memorial

10.07.2019 12:15
US civil rights activist and politician Jesse Jackson is expected to be a guest of honour during events marking Roma Holocaust Memorial Day at the site of the former Nazi German Auschwitz death camp in southern Poland next month.
Rev. Jesse Jackson
Rev. Jesse Jackson United States Mission Geneva [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The head of the Association of Roma in Poland, Roman Kwiatkowski, has told state news agency PAP that Jackson is “not only an important figure in American political and social life, but above all a world-renowned activist promoting civic liberties, equality and empowerment for national and ethnic minorities.”

Roma Holocaust Memorial Day is held every year at Auschwitz on August 2, the anniversary of the killing of almost 3,000 Roma and Sinti prisoners, including women and children, in the camp’s gas chambers in 1944.

This year’s event is expected to bring together former Auschwitz prisoners from many 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 in Auschwitz survived the ordeal.

Polish Roma have ethnic minority status. They are estimated to number 20,000 to 30,000.

(mk/gs)