Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) paid tribute on Tuesday to the memory of the Roma victims of the Holocaust, voicing condemnation against any aggressive behaviours towards the Roma community.
August 2 is Romania’s National Samudaripen Remembrance Day, when the Holocaust against the Roma people is commemorated.
„The MAE condemns the proliferation of hate speech against members of the Roma community, especially in the online environment, including amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the illegitimate, unprovoked and unjustified aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, MAE expresses its solidarity with the Roma victims of the conflict, support for the actions to manage the situation of the Roma refugees from Ukraine and firmly rejects any type of negative discrimination against the members of the Roma community”, MAE says in a press statement released on Tuesday.
According to MAE, „the suffering of the Roma in the Nazi concentration and extermination camps and their allies during WWII, remained, unfortunately unknown to the public for a long time”.
For this reason MAE supports the national and international initiatives to promote education, research and commemoration of the genocide against the Roma.
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On August 2, 1944, approximately 3,000 Roma at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp fell victim to the Nazi regime. In Europe, around 500,000 Roma were killed in the events of the Holocaust.
In order to honor the memory of the victims, August 2 was declared the European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day by the European Parliament Resolution of April 15, 2015.
Under Law 124/2020, August 2 was created Romania’s National Samudaripen Remembrance Day. The word samudaripen means mass killing in the Roma language.
Later, Law 2/2021 passed to prevent and combat Antigypsyism.
According to the final report of the International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania, approximately 25,000 Roma of Romania were deported by the Antonescu regime to Transnistria. Of these, about 11,000 died.
