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August 2 is the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Roma Genocide – Porajmos. On this tragic day in 1944, about 3,000 Roma were killed in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
In 1996, 52 years after the tragic events, international Roma organizations appealed to European citizens to honor the memory of the victims of Porajmos – to go to the streets in their cities and light candles to draw attention to the mourning date.
On August 3, 1944, it was silent and uncrowded in Roma barracks in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. 2,897 women, children and men died in gas chambers overnight. One Holocaust survivor recalled: “Roma women fought for the lives of their children and even seriously wounded several SS men. Yes, that night there was a riot of those who died not without resistance, but still, they died in gas chambers.
In Ukraine, unfortunately, the study of Roma Genocide began only recently, only in the late 1990s. The first studies about Roma Porajmos were published abroad, some of them were translated.
This motivated Ukrainian scholars to study Porajmos in Ukraine and the results of their studies were published.
The attention of scholars, public, and the representatives of Roma communities to the issue of Porajmos was noticed by the state. On October 8, 2004, Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (UA Parliament) adopted a Resolution on the acknowledgment of the International Roma Holocaust Day on August 2.
Due to the serious irreparable social consequences of Roma Holocaust, socially vulnerable situation of Roma in places of compact settlement, UA Parliament decided to introduce the International Roma Holocaust Day at the state level since 2004.
The UA Government together with the relevant local executive bodies was instructed to take measures to study the scale, location and number of victims of Hitler’s Roma ethnocide during the Great Patriotic War, to acknowledge the memory of deported and executed members of this national minority. families of victims.
However, the provisions of the Resolution of the UA Parliament were not fully implemented. Indeed, in Transcarpathia no memorial was established on the place of camps-ghetto. There were many camps-ghetto in the region.
At present, the memory of the events of Porajmos is preserved by Roma families, the memories of innocent victims will pass to children and grandchildren for a long time, and they – to their children and grandchildren.
Only through the truth, through exposing and condemning the atrocities of totalitarianism – both Nazi and communist – we shall protect ourselves and future generations from the recurrence of the horrors of the past.
In order to understand better the horrors of August 2, 1944, young people from all over Ukraine and Transcarpathia in particular visited the Auschwitz death camp.
During the visit, the delegation visited the Auschwitz I memorial complex, where they got acquainted with archival materials of persecution of people on ethnic grounds. The most repressed were German Roma (Sinti), as well as Roma from Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps are a warning for people. The exact number of dead is still unknown, as almost all documentation was burned before the Soviet army arrived. It was decided to leave this gloomy place, called the Death Camp, intact, in order to preserve the evidence of the crime committed against humanity here.
It is important to remember these dark pages of history and to teach young people and students.
Thus, for the teachers and students of educational institutions of Uzhgorod, seminars were held to study the issues of Porajmos in Transcarpathian region. The purpose of such seminars was to form a tolerant attitude of students to various national minorities; prevention of conflicts based on linguistic, religious or ethnic beliefs.
Emphasis was placed on historical facts that show serious violations of Roma rights, especially during the Second World War, during Porajmos.
In 2018, Uzhhorod National University introduced a course – “Roma Studies”, which was optional for students from different specialties. The Roma Studies course includes topics on Roma history, culture, and public life, and covers Porajmos.
Today, the Ukrainian Center for the Study of Holocaust History is conducting active research work on the study of Roma Porajmos. Research papers by Mykhailo Tyagly and Natalia Zinevych, who are successfully working in Kyiv, were published.
In Zakarpattia region, Roman Ofitsinsky, Yuriy Slavik and Yevhenia Navrotska studied the history of Roma exile. Yuriy Slavik in 2016 was awarded a degree for his dissertation “Repressive policy of Hungary in 1938-1944”, which also partially revealed the issue of Roma Porajmos in Transcarpathia.
You will find more information in the video tour.
The creation of this video became possible for you thanks to the implementation of the project by the public organization KAPL “Vested”. Developped with the support provided by the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future”(EVZ). This publication does not represent an expression of opinion by the Foundation EVZ. The author(s) bear(s) responsibility for the content.
