August 2 - International Roma and Sinti Genocide Remembrance Day
This date, August 2, is devoted to the Roma Genocide or Porajmos (“the Devouring”), which took place during World War II as a result of the racial purification efforts by Nazi Germany and its Axis Powers allies.
In November of 1935, the Nazi German government amended its Nuremburg Laws, which codified its agenda for racial purity, to officially include the Sinti and Roma community among those labeled as “racially inferior.”
Current estimates place the number of Roma people killed during the Second World War at nearly 500,000. This figure includes tens of thousands murdered by Nazi military and secret police units across the Soviet Union, as well as approximately 3,000 who were exterminated in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, while others endured forced labor and perished at camps such as Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.
