City memorial for 'forgotten' Roma Holocaust victims

NEWCASTLE has unveiled the UK's first permanent public memorial dedicated to the Roma victims of the Holocaust.

- DANIEL HOLLAND

It is estimated that up to 500,000 Roma and Sinti people were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War Two, but dozens of dignitaries gathered outside Newcastle Civic Centre on Friday heard that their suffering had largely been “overlooked” in history.

A new memorial has been erected outside the council headquarters to remember the victims of the genocide and to honour the soliders from the North East who helped liberate concentration camps in Europe, including Bergen-Belsen.

Nicu Ion, of the Roma Access Association, told The Journal that the monument was a “powerful statement that history needs to be remembered, commemorated, and that we need to educate younger generations about the atrocities of the past so that those mistakes won't happen again”.