The Roma Holocaust not only had victims, but also heroes, Zoltán Balog, minister of Human Capacities, has said.
The minister added that it is our duty to remember and to talk about them so that as many people as possible should know about their courageous conduct.
Minister Balog mentioned how in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp the Roma rebelled against the SS soldiers keeping them in captivity on 16 May 1944.
According to MTI, the minister said the Roma people may look upon the history of their community and say there were people who resisted and they were heroes. This may help to ensure that those who were victims in the past would not be victims in the future.
Hungary can be proud not only of the Roma heroes of the Holocaust, but also of those of the 1956 revolution, as well as of the Hungarian Gypsies in Romania who stood up for the Hungarian community in Marosvásárhely in 1989, the minister added.
Minister Balog pointed out that there is a highly valuable Roma culture in Hungary, and it is to be hoped that this culture will gain in strength, rather than weaken in the future. It is the duty of society to familiarize themselves with this culture, and to accept it as part of their own.
The Hungarian government has recently supported several research projects and works of art concerned with the Roma Holocaust. The minister mentioned the Kali Trash - Fate of the Roma during the Holocaust in Hungary by János Bársony and Ágnes Daróczi, the production 371 Stars staged in the National Theatre and the Memorial to the Victims of the Roma Holocaust.