Roma Women’s Testimony from Ukraine at the United Nations Holocaust Memorial Ceremony

On 27 January 2026, the United Nations General Assembly Hall hosted the official United Nations observance of the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, held under the theme “Holocaust Remembrance for Dignity and Human Rights.”

At the invitation of the United Nations, Nataliia Tomenko addressed the international community by sharing her own testimony alongside that of her grandmother, Halyna Tomenko, a Roma survivor whose family endured persecution during the Second World War in Nazi-occupied Ukraine.

In the context of the 85th anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre in 2026, an important commemorative milestone was reached: for the first time, the lived experience of a Roma survivor from Ukraine was formally presented at the United Nations Holocaust Memorial Ceremony. The testimony was conveyed through an intergenerational Roma women’s perspective, emphasizing survival, the transmission of historical memory, and shared responsibility for the future.

The ceremony featured addresses by the United Nations Secretary-General, the President of the General Assembly, and representatives of the Permanent Missions of Israel and the United States, alongside memorial prayers and survivor testimonies.

Testimony of Halyna Tomenko

Halyna Tomenko was born on 25 May 1945 in Dnipro, Ukraine, into a Roma family belonging to the Servo subgroup. Although she was born at the end of the Second World War, the war shaped her life long before her birth. Her parents and four older siblings lived in the village of Tsarychanka, where the family worked as farmers. Her father also owned a horse and wagon, providing transportation for local residents.

In 1940, as Nazi racial persecution intensified and Roma families were increasingly targeted, the family was forced to flee Tsarychanka and seek refuge in the larger city of Dnipro in order to survive.

In her testimony at the United Nations, Halyna Tomenko reflected on the enduring impact of persecution on her family and community:

“My life was shaped by war, displacement, and endurance even before my birth. My family endured hunger, genocide, uncertainty, and loss.”

During the Nazi occupation, Roma families lived under constant threat of execution. Survival depended on movement, silence, and fear. Entire Roma families and communities were erased without records or recognition.

Halyna later married a Roma man whose family had also survived Nazi persecution in the Kremenchuk, Poltava region. In their household, memories of the war were never written down or formally acknowledged. Instead, they lived on through physical illness, anxiety, and silence passed from one generation to the next.

“The older generation carried trauma so that the younger generation could live.”

Speaking from present-day Ukraine, Halyna drew a direct connection between the past and the present, as war has once again returned to her country:

“War has returned to Ukraine. Once again, families flee. Trauma does not disappear with time—it is carried forward. But so is strength.”

At the conclusion of her testimony, Halyna symbolically entrusted the responsibility of memory to the next generation:

“My generation has carried memory through survival. Now we entrust this memory to our children and grandchildren—not as fear, but as knowledge, dignity, and protection.”

Her testimony stands as a powerful intergenerational witness to Roma survival, resilience, and the urgent need to safeguard memory in the face of renewed violence.

Testimony of Nataliia Tomenko

Following the testimony of her grandmother, Nataliia Tomenko addressed the United Nations as a representative of the third generation after the Roma genocide, a generation that did not experience genocide directly, yet experience current full-scale Russian invasion in Ukraine and bears responsibility for preserving memory, advancing justice, and safeguarding future generations.

Nataliia Tomenko is a cultural heritage expert, scholar, psychologist-consultant in transactional analysis, visual artist, and Roma human rights defender from Ukraine. She currently serves as Co-Chair of AURA: Ukrainian Roma Advocacy Alliance in Germany and as Deputy Director of ARCA: Agency for the Advocacy of Roma Culture in Ukraine, where she leads projects on memory, oral history, and cultural heritage preservation during wartime.

In her address, she emphasized the intergenerational transfer of responsibility:

“I stand before you today as a granddaughter, as a representative of the third generation after the Roma genocide, and as someone who accepts the responsibility entrusted to me.”

Nataliia highlighted that Roma survivors in Ukraine are among the very few living witnesses to two wars on the same land - the Second World War and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Their experiences constitute a unique and irreplaceable body of historical knowledge.

“Roma survivors teach us how to endure uncertainty, how to remain human in inhuman conditions, and how to protect life even when the future is unclear.”

She described the work of Roma civil society organizations in Ukraine, particularly during wartime: documenting survivor testimonies, building secure digital archives, creating exhibitions and educational tools, and providing rapid humanitarian assistance to elderly survivors affected by renewed violence.

“Memory alone is not enough. It must be transformed into protection, education, and solidarity.”

In closing, Nataliia Tomenko addressed the responsibility owed to future generations, linking remembrance directly to human rights and democratic resilience:

“What we do today will determine whether memory remains alive — and whether dignity and human rights are truly protected tomorrow.”

Her testimony affirmed that intergenerational remembrance is not only an act of commemoration, but a form of active responsibility - ensuring that the lessons of the past shape a safer and more just future.

Historical Context: The Roma and Sinti Genocide

During the Second World War, Nazi Germany and its allies carried out the genocide of the Roma and Sinti alongside the Holocaust of the Jewish people. Across Nazi-occupied Europe, an estimated 500,000 Roma and Sinti were murdered as part of a racially motivated campaign of extermination rooted in centuries of antigypsyism. Roma and Sinti were persecuted not for actions or political affiliation, but solely because of their ethnic origin, classified by Nazi racial ideology as “inferior” and therefore expendable. The genocide took multiple forms: deportations, forced labour, starvation, medical experimentation, and mass murder in concentration and extermination camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the so-called “Gypsy family camp” was liquidated on the night of 2–3 August 1944, when over 4,300 Roma and Sinti were murdered in gas chambers. For decades after the war, this genocide remained marginalised, insufficiently documented, and largely excluded from national and international memory frameworks.

In Ukraine, the genocide of Roma took on a distinct and particularly brutal form, often described by scholars as the “genocide by bullets.” Unlike in Western and Central Europe, where Roma were more frequently deported to camps, Roma in Nazi-occupied Ukrainian territories were predominantly exterminated through mass shootings carried out by German Einsatzgruppen, SS units, Wehrmacht formations, field gendarmerie, and local collaborators. From 1941 onward, Roma communities, both travelling and settled, were rounded up and executed in forests, ravines, fields, and on the outskirts of towns, frequently without any official records or identification of victims. Entire families were murdered at once, leaving few survivors and little documentation. Researchers estimate that between 20,000 and 72,000 Roma were killed on the territory of present-day Ukraine. After the war, Soviet authorities did not recognise Roma as a distinct victim group, subsuming their deaths under the category of “peaceful Soviet citizens,” which contributed to decades of silence and historical erasure. As a result, survivor testimonies, many recorded only in last decades, remain one of the most vital sources for reconstructing this history and restoring dignity, recognition, and justice to Roma victims.

Institutional Contributors

·  Agency for the Advocacy of Roma Culture (ARCA)

·  Ukrainian Roma Advocacy Alliance (AURA)

·  European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture e.V. (ERIAC)

·  Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma

·  Information Centre on Antigypsyism (MIA)

·  KONTAKTE‑KONTAKTbI e.V.

·  The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University

·  Research Centre on Antigypsyism, Heidelberg University

·  Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies (UCHS)

·  National Historical and Memorial Preserve Babyn Yar

The work presented is supported and developed in cooperation with national and international Roma and memory institutions, whose engagement reflects a shared commitment to strengthening Roma representation, combating antigypsyism, and ensuring that Roma voices are present in global memory and human rights spaces. These partners are jointly engaged in safeguarding the oral history of the Roma genocide in Ukraine through testimony collection, education, and long-term memory preservation, contributing expertise in research, archival practice, commemoration, and public education.