Roma from across Europe gathered at Auschwitz today to remember hundreds of thousands of their ancestors murdered in the Nazi Holocaust.

Sixty years ago today, the Nazis gassed the last of almost 3000 Roma who were then interned in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. The exact number of Roma, across Europe also known as Gypsies and Sinti, who died at the Nazi’s hands is unknown, though it could be as high as 200,000.

In today’s ceremonies at Auschwitz, Roman Kwiatkowski, the top Roma representative in Poland called for greater awareness of the lesser known victims of genocide, saying, “We fear again that the Roma Holocaust will be forgotten.”

In this radio diary, Peter Black describes why, sixty years later, remembering the victims of the so-called “Hidden Holocaust” is more important than ever.

Guests:

Peter Black, senior historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum