Roma Holocaust commemorated in Budapest

A conference was held to mark the anniversary of the Roma Holocaust in Budapest on Thursday.

Addressing the event, Katalin Victor Langer noted that in May 1944 Roma prisoners of Auschwitz turned against their Nazi captors and fought heroically for their own survival.

She noted the importance of commemorating tragedies such as the Roma Holocaust as part of Hungary’s collective conscience.

Szabolcs Molnár, the deputy mayor of the fourth district in northern Budapest, noted that on July 11 in 1944 ten thousand Jewish and Roma men and women were taken from Újpest to Nazi death camps.

The local government declared July 11 the district’s own day of mourning in 2005, he said.

August 2 was named international day of the Roma Holocaust in 1972.

Over 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.

Featured image: MTI

Source: MTI