A man who works to support Roma people in Ipswich has said he wants his community’s voices to be heard, especially in the wake of Holocaust Memorial Day.
On January 27, countries around the world remembered and paid tribute to those who lost their lives at the hands of Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
However, Daniel Banceanu said that crimes against the Roma community are rarely discussed.
“It’s painful, the fact that this is not acknowledged and we still live with this pain,” he said.
“It’s painful when people omit it, and don’t like to talk about it. It makes us feel that we are still not important, and are still not seen as humans.”
The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust estimates that between 200,000 and 500,000 Roma and Sinti people were murdered by the Nazis. However, many more were imprisoned, used as forced labour or subject to forced sterilisation and medical experimentation.
Mr Banceanu arrived in Ipswich from Romania in 2015. He is the oldest of 10 siblings, and settled with his family in the town.
He remembers first hearing the stories of Roma people’s persecution from his family at the age of 12.
“As children, we were living with these stories. In our village in Romania, we didn’t have the internet or TV,” said Mr Banceanu, now 26.
“So, in the evenings, we were gathering and our parents and grandparents were telling us stories about the war and the holocaust.”
He refers to this time as “the black days”.
"At first, I just thought of it like a horror movie, and even that was hard to understand,” he said.
“They were murdered in so many different ways – they were asked to go in a feeble boat, that had always been made to sink.
“Another form was to ask them to take showers, where from the pipes flowed gas, not water.
"Another method was based on a promise. They were asked to leave their camp and the prison they were kept in, asked to leave but they were told they would find a city where they were able to live and be safe.
“So, with hope in their hearts, they all left, but it was so very cold, freezing in fact. They had left happy to seek safety, but this was just a cruel and brutal trap, nothing but frozen wasteland.
“Their destiny was to just be left to die there. I was only around 12 when I heard all of this.”
He added that the words of comedian Jimmy Carr last year were particularly hurtful to Roma people.
Carr was widely condemned for comments made in his Netflix special, His Dark Material, which mocked the suffering of people from traveller communities during the holocaust.
Mr Banceanu now works as a support worker for Roma people, helping people to find employment, access English classes and fill in applications.
“When I come to see my parents in Ipswich, people are still coming to me and asking for help,” he said.
“Discrimination is not as bad as it was. When we first moved, people were very suspicious about our community. They didn’t want to say hello, and didn’t make us feel welcome.”
However, he explained that once people get to know their Roma neighbours and colleagues, many of them change their negative views of Roma people.
“More things need to be done to show the good sides of our community,” he said.
Mr Banceanu graduated from the University of Bedford last year with a degree in Health and Social Care. He was the first in his family to attend both school and university.
He now lives in London.
“I moved to London because I have a dream,” he said. “I’m working for Roma Support Group and as a taxi driver, and from March I’m going to study nursing. My goal is to open a nursing home.”
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