Mayor Karácsony: ‘No one should fear because of skin colour, identity, religion’ in Budapest
Budapest’s leadership is working to ensure that nobody in the city should live in fear because of the colour of their skin, their identity or religion, Mayor Gergely Karácsony said on Tuesday, marking the Roma Holocaust Memorial Day.
“On this day, we remember our Roma compatriots who were dragged from their homes and deported to death camps just because of their ethnicity,” Karácsony said on Facebook.
“Diversity and standing together makes Budapest strong,” he said.
“We stand up for those who suffer discrimination even today, because this is the only way to prevent hatred from reemerging,” the mayor said.
The Council of Europe declared August 2 the Roma Holocaust Memorial Day in 1972. Some 3,000 Roma prisoners killed that night in Auschwitz in 1944 are commemorated on that day. About 500,000 Roma are estimated to have been killed in Nazi camps, 23,000 of them in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
