Day of remembrance for Roma Holocaust

Wednesday (August 2) is a day of remembrance for Slovak Roma (gypsies) killed in extermination camps during the Second World War. To mark the occasion, Justice Minister Lucia Žitňanská along with Ábel Ravasz, Government Plenipotentiary for Roma Communities called for the lighting of candles to commemorate victims of the Roma Holocaust. This can also be carried out symbolically through changing one's social media profile picture to that of a burning candle, an act which Žitňanská has already undertaken. Enacted in 1935 in Nazi Germany, the Nuremberg Laws classified people of Roma (gypsy) ethnicity as being "enemies of the race-based state"; placing them in the same category as people of the Jewish faith. This paved the way for their deportations to death camps across Europe, including citizens from the wartime First Slovak Republic, a Nazi puppet state at that time. A "Gypsy concentration camp" was established in 1942 in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, with the camp doctor, Josef Mengele, carrying out experiments on gypsy inmates, in particular with pregnant women, newborns and twins. Between 1941 and 1944, Slovak authorities sent several thousand Roma individuals to concentration camps.