A 79-strong Hungarian delegation is travelling to Auschwitz-Birkenau to mark Roma Holocaust Memorial Day tomorrow, and the March of the Living Foundation will hold commemorations in Budapest.
Phiren Amenca, a network of Roma and non-Roma activists working against discrimination, has been holding a series of events connected to memorial day in Krakow and Auschwitz each year for a decade. This year, 24 young Hungarian activists are participating in the event. Another 55 are travelling to southern Poland to participate in the commemoration on August 2, where the NGO will lay a wreath at the memorial of the Roma holocaust in the erstwhile concentration camp. The commemoration in Budapest will be held at the organisation’s headquarters on August 2. The Council of Europe declared August 2 the Roma Holocaust Memorial Day in 1972. Some 3,000 Roma prisoners killed that night in Auschwitz in 1944 are commemorated on that day.