Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27 January
On the morning of 27 January 1945 the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps still held some 7,000 prisoners. Over a million people deported to Auschwitz perished there. It is estimated that six million Jews were exterminated in the death camps. The genocide of over 500,000 Gypsy people during the Holocaust still remains a relatively unknown fact.
Despite the genocide committed against Roma and Sinti people by the Nazi regime, their experiences were only fully recognised by the West German Government in 1981 and the genocide is only now becoming more widely known. There is no provision in the curriculum to specify this is taught in school as part of Holocaust education and yet Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people have been part of British history for centuries.
Holocaust memorial day – The Roma genocide
The Gypsy Holocaust – forgotten victims