Roma Holocaust Memorial Day


The Roma Holocaust Memorial Day on August 2 commemorates the victims of the Romani genocide which was committed against the Romani people by Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II.
The date was chosen because on the night of 2 to 3 August 1944 Roma, mostly women, children and elderly people, were killed in the Gypsy family camp at the Auschwitz concentration camp. The total number of victims who were killed in the genocide is estimated to number between and. Some countries have chosen to commemorate the genocide on different dates.

Establishment and commemoration

In 2004 the Verkhovna Rada adopted a resolution on the commemoration of the International Remembrance Day of the Holocaust of the Roma.
In 2009 the Serbian Roma National Congress and the International Romani Union proposed the introduction of the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust against the Roma/Porajmos.
In 2011 Poland established, by parliamentary resolution, the Genocide Remembrance Day of the Roma and Sinti. Croatia, Czechia, Lithuania, and Slovakia also observe 2 August as Roma and Sinti Genocide Remembrance Day.
The European Parliament on 15 April 2015 declared "that a European day should be dedicated to commemorating the victims of the genocide of the Roma during World War II and that this day should be called the European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day".
The Council of Europe also holds commemoration ceremonies.

Other dates

, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden commemorate the Roma and Sinti genocide on 27 January, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Czechia has four dates: 2 August, 7 March, 13 May and 21 August. Latvia has three dates: 27 January, 8 April and 8 May.
In Serbia it is commemorated on 16 December, "in
memory of that date in 1942, when Himmler ordered the systematic deportation of Roma to concentration camps and their extermination".