Roma and Sinti Genocide Remembrance Day - 2 August

2 August marks Roma and Sinti Genocide Remembrance Day. It is estimated that between 250,000 - 500,000 Roma and Sinti were murdered by the Nazis, their allies and collaborators across Europe.

The Nazi regime enjoyed a considerable degree of support from ordinary Germans on their policies of persecution and murder of Roma and Sinti. Roma and Sinti were judged as ‘racially inferior’ and were subjected to internment, sterilisation, deportation, forced labour and mass murder. Within the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex, SS medical researchers received authorisation for pseudoscientific medical experiments. Approximately 3,500 Roma were selected for these experiments. Roma prisoners were often sent to Auschwitz from other concentration camps for the SS medical team to conduct their experiments.

In the years following the end of the Second World War, discrimination against Roma and Sinti continued across Europe. It was only in late 1965 that the West German compensation law for victims of the Nazi regime acknowledged persecution of Roma and Sinti. In 1982, Chancellor Helmut Schmidt formally stated that German Roma and Sinti had been victims of genocide.

To read more about the Roma and Sinti Genocide, visit https://www.sintiundroma.org/en/, an online portal about the Genocide.

Persecution of Roma and Sinti, 1939-1945. Image courtesy of USHMM.

Roma women and child, c.1930s. Image courtesy of USHMM.

Roma men and boys interned at Bełżec extermination camp, 1940. Image courtesy of USHMM.