Why is 2nd August the International Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma?
Prejudice against the ethnical minority of Roma and Sinti has its starting point long time before the Nazis dictatorship. A large part of society has labelled them criminal and uneducated.
Later on, as the Nazis took over, the perception of Roma people has become more racist, as they were accused of being a thread to the “Aryan” race.
Slowly, the Nazis began the persecution of Roma and Sinti by isolating them socially, so that they were expelled from the imperial chamber of musicians, not allowed to work or practice their culture.
In 1943, 22 000 German Roma have been deported to Auschwitz, nearly 19 300 died from hunger, cold, sickness or human medical experiments.
On the night from 2. to 3. August. 1944, the less than 4 000 Roma that have remained in the camp were killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
Including the areas of Crimea, western Ukraine and the transcarpatian region, 20 000 is the estimated number of Roma on Ukrainian ground in 1941.
The estimation of the number of victims is considered problematic, due to deportation of Roma from Romania to be killed in Ukraine, such as bad protocol of killings. The real number of Ukrainian Roma victims must be over 24 000.
Announcements
MoreLatest News
-
Call for Applications: International Seminar ‘The Holocaust as a Starting Point’
The Holocaust as a Starting Point (HSP) program, launched by the Mémorial de la Shoah and partners, supports Holocaust education through international teacher training. Within the “Polish-Ukrainian Dialogue,” the Polish Centre for Education Development (ORE), the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies, and the Mémorial de la Shoah will host two seminars for 45 teachers from Ukraine and Poland.
[More] -
Challenges of Today” on the UCHS YouTube Channel
Recordings of the presentations from the XIX Annual Roundtable “Holocaust Commemoration and the Ukrainian Society: Heritage and the Challenges of Today” are now available on the official YouTube channel of the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies.
[More] -
Annual Report of the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies for 2025: Events, Media, Publications
We are pleased to share with you the annual report of the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies. It includes a list of events held during the year, links to programs, video and audio materials, photo galleries, and publications - everything we managed to accomplish in 2025.
[More] -
International Forum in Berlin in Support of Ukraine
On February 23, 2026, Berlin hosted the international forum Café Kyiv on the eve of the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
[More] -
THE HOLOCAUST AS A STARTING POINT Ukrainian teachers training in France
From February 9 to 12, Paris hosted the scholarly and methodological seminar Holocaust as a Starting Point, organized by the Shoah Memorial in cooperation with the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies. The program featured lectures, workshops, museum practice, and excursions.
[More]




