For the Roma community around the world, August 2 is a mournful date. International Roma Holocaust Day.

International Day of the Roma Holocaust in History

In 1944, the night of August 3 became a terrible tragedy for the last 3,000-strong group of Gypsy prisoners in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. The Nazis staged the so-called “Gypsy Night”, physically exterminating a large number of Roma people. During the Second World War, 23,000 representatives of the Gypsy nationality were sent to this camp, more than 20,000 of them died.

The Nazis and their allies exterminated about 90% of the Roma in Europe. Only in Ukraine at that time about 20 thousand Gypsies died. According to researchers, there are about 1.5 million Roma among the victims of the Holocaust. In percentage terms, this is the largest number of victims of Nazi repression. That is why these tragic events have a symbolic name – Kali Thrash, which means Black Horror.

In November 1996, a conference was held in Auschwitz dedicated to the commemoration of Gypsies who died under the brutal Nazi regime, at which the heads of Roma organizations in the United States and European countries decided to celebrate August 2 as the International Day of the Roma Holocaust. This date was initiated by the International Council of Remembrance of the Genocide of the Roma Ethnicity.

In Ukraine, in October 2004, a Verkhovna Rada Resolution was approved, according to which the country began to celebrate this event officially. The decision was made in order to preserve the historical memory of the innocent victims of mass murders of Roma, so that future generations will not allow the repetition of the terrible tragedy.