Roma Holocaust survivor Ceija Stojka dies
Messina Weiss, 12, great grand-daughter of Holocaust survivor Gertrud Rocher, carries a flower at the memorial’s inauguration on Wednesday. Hitler sought to exterminate Europe’s Roma population as well as its Jews.
Ceija Stojka, a Roma survivor of the Holocaust, has died at age 79.
A writer and artist, she raised awareness about the difficult plight of the Roma people under the Nazis, the BBC reported.
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Born in Austria, Stojka survived imprisonment at Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Ravensbrueck concentration camps, Reuters said.
She was one of just six members of her family to survive out of 200 people, the BBC reported.
She went on to write "We Live in Seclusion: The Memories of a Romani" about her experience, Reuters said.
Along with the Jews, up to 1.5 million Roma people were sent to Nazi concentration camps and killed, according to Reuters.
As GlobalPost reported, SS chief Heinrich Himmler had ordered the “Final Solution of the Gypsies Question” in 1938 and four years later thousands of Roma and Sinti were rounded up and later deportation to the camps.