Every year on 2 August, Genocide of the Roma Memorial Day, Europe remembers the hundreds of thousands of Roma and Sinti people persecuted and murdered during the Nazi era. But what happens on 3 August and every day thereafter? Victims of persecution can be lost twice: first when their lives are taken, and then when their names are quietly mislaid by history.
For decades, one of the most haunting images of Nazi persecution was known simply as the "girl with the headscarf." She was filmed looking through the closing doors of a train leaving the Westerbork transit camp and was widely assumed to be Jewish. Only years later did historical research restore her identity. Her name was Settela Steinbach. She was Sinti.
Settela was nine when she and her family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944, 82 years ago. She was most likely murdered there with her mother, two brothers and two sisters on the night of 2 to 3 August 1944, 82 years ago. Only the photograph survived. Her name, her identity and the history of the people to whom she belonged almost vanished from the story attached to it.
A Genocide Still Waiting for Recognition
Roma and Sinti people were subjected to racist laws, imprisonment, forced labour, deportation, mass shootings and murder across Europe, yet their genocide remains one of the least recognised chapters of Nazi persecution. That neglect didn't end in 1945. For decades, Roma and Sinti victims were denied recognition from national histories, and many survivors received neither justice nor proper acknowledgement. The prejudices that had helped make persecution possible didn't disappear when the war ended.
Some progress has been made. Some memorials have been established and research has deepened. Survivors, descendants, scholars and organisations have painstakingly recovered names and histories. Recognition remains patchy, though. In too many classrooms and museums, the genocide is still presented as an optional appendix to the history of the Nazi era rather than an integral part of it.
From Bureaucracy to Barbarism
Nazi crimes didn't begin with mass murder. They began with stereotypes, exclusion, paperwork, racial classification and the steady removal of rights — the bureaucratic preliminaries to barbarism. Teaching this history shows how prejudice emerges as administrative and legal and eventually becomes lethal. It must also show Roma and Sinti people as more than anonymous victims. They had families, professions, communities and ambitions. They resisted persecution and rebuilt lives afterwards. Settela wasn't merely the frightened child caught on film for a few seconds: she was a daughter and sister; her father was a trader and violinist.
As opportunities to hear directly from living survivors and witnesses become fewer, responsibility passes increasingly to institutions. Because recognition came so late, many Roma and Sinti voices were never recorded in the first place, making the testimonies that remain all the more precious. Archives must be opened, sites connected to the genocide safeguarded, photographs correctly identified, and Roma and Sinti perspectives placed at the centre of education and commemoration.
New Framework for Teaching the Genocide
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's "Recommendations for Teaching and Learning about the Persecution and Genocide of the Roma during the Nazi Era" were developed to turn that obligation into something more useful than good intentions. Designed for governments, policymakers, teachers, museums, memorial sites, archives and civil-society educators, they provide a practical framework for why this history should be taught, what students should learn and how it can be approached responsibly. The Recommendations help countries bring this history into mainstream education and memory culture, safeguard the historical record, counter distortion, and ensure that teaching includes Roma voices, resistance and crucially, agency. They also offer guidance on curricula, educational resources and teacher training, while recognising national and local experiences and involving Roma communities themselves.
Europe's commitment to remembrance can't be measured only by ceremonies held on 2 August, however moving or well attended. It must be measured by what happens in classrooms, archives, museums and public institutions throughout the year. The test is whether future students will still encounter silence where this history should be taught, and whether people like Settela remain merely an anonymous face in an old film, or are remembered as people with names, families and a history. Europe cannot return those who were murdered. It can at least refuse to lose them twice.
Michaela Küchler, Secretary General of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, wrote the piece. She said the opinions expressed in the article are those of the author and don't represent the editorial position of Euronews. Küchler has held a range of positions including Press Attaché in Santiago de Chile, Cultural Attaché in former Czechoslovakia, and Consul General in Chennai. She also served as a negotiator for European Union enlargement and as a European policy adviser to two Federal Chancellors and three Federal Presidents. As Chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance German presidency in 2020, 6 years ago, she spearheaded initiatives to counter distortion of the Holocaust and the genocide of the Roma.
Why This Matters:
The systematic exclusion of Roma and Sinti voices from Europe's collective memory isn't just a historical oversight — it's an ongoing injustice that reflects the persistence of the same prejudices that enabled genocide in the first place. When educational institutions fail to teach this history, when museums present it as marginal, when victims remain unnamed and unrecognised, Europe repeats the erasure that began with deportation and murder. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's new framework offers European governments and educators a clear path forward, but implementation will require political will and institutional commitment. As the last survivors pass away, the window for recording testimony is closing. What's needed now isn't more symbolic gestures on memorial days but sustained investment in education, archive preservation, and the inclusion of Roma perspectives in how Europe teaches its darkest chapter. The question isn't whether Europe can afford to remember — it's whether it can afford not to.