Every year, at 2 August, Europe commemorates the victims of the Holocaust against the roma. This day is dedicated to the memory of the hundreds of thousands of roma who were persecuted and killed by the nazi regime and its allies during the Second World War.
Date of 2 August was chosen because, on the night of 2 to 3 August 1944, the nazi authorities liquidated like this – the so-called "camp of roma families" from the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Approximate 4.300 of women, men, children and elderly were sent to the gas chambers and killed in one night. This episode represents one of the most tragic moments of the genocide against the roma.
During the Second World War, between 220 and 500.000 of roma in Europe were victims of racial persecution, deportations, forced labor, hunger, medical experiments and executions. In many countries, this community were almost destroyed, and the survivors remained for a long time without recognition of their sufferings.
The Holocaust against the roma began to be fully recognized internationally, in the year 2015, when the European Parliament officially designated the date of 2 August as the European Holocaust Remembrance Day against the Roma, to keep alive the memory of the victims and to promote education, respect for human rights and the fight against racism and crime.
Preserving the memory of the Holocaust against the roma represents a moral and historical duty. Through education and knowledge of the truth, the generations of today and tomorrow can contribute to preventing the repetition of such tragedies and to the consolidation of a Europe based on solidarity, tolerance and mutual respect.
