On the occasion of Roma Holocaust Memorial Day an international conference will be held about how Romani memory is presented in arts and culture - the forms and resources for preserving and interpreting it - as well as how to combat antigypsyism.
The conference will be held on 1 August in Cracow, Poland and is organized by the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma, the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture, and ternYpe, the International Network of Romani Youth.
On 2 August, on the grounds of the former Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, the Association of Roma in Poland, and the Auschwitz Museum will hold the annual commemorative ceremony for Roma Holocaust Memorial Day. This year, for the 75th anniversary, eyewitnesses, survivors, their relatives, representatives of governments worldwide, and delegations from various international organizations will attend.
During the night of 2 August and the early morning hours of 3 August 1944, the Nazis murdered almost 2 898 Romani and Sinti people in the gas chambers of the concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Other Romani people were murdered in the concentration camps in Chełmno, Treblinka, Majdanek, Sobibór and Bełżec.
Still other Romani people whose numbers are difficult to estimate were shot dead and then buried in mass graves in the forest. Romani people from all over Europe mark 2 August as Roma Holocaust Memorial Day.
The day was officially promulgated by the European Parliament in 2015 as “European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day”. It commemorates the 500 000 Roma and Sinti who were murdered in Nazi-occupied Europe.
