While Nazi Germany attacks and arrests against Jews continued, attacks and arrests against Roma were initiated. The Roma were put into concentration camps. In the Baltic countries occupied by the Nazis, Roma were massacred.
On the night between 2 and 3 August 1944, more than 3,000 Roma were massacred in 3 gas chambers in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
The majority of the victims were old and sick. Among those killed were women and children.
Since then, the night of this massacre is called the 'Gypsy Night'. While the whole world speaks of the Jewish genocide, the genocide of the Roma has not been on the public agenda for many years.
While Nazi Germany attacks and arrests against Jews continued, attacks and arrests against Roma were initiated. The Roma were put into concentration camps. In the Baltic countries occupied by the Nazis, Roma were massacred.
Half a million Roma killed
Although the statistics that the Nazis failed to destroy in Germany showed that half a million Roma were massacred, the German Government officially acknowledged that only many years after the massacre.
In 1982 Helmut Schmidt, the then Chancellor of West Germany, said that the Roma, just like the Jews, were the target of the Nazis and were victims of genocide.
In 1989, the United Nations announced that Roma people were targeted and massacred during World War II because of their ethnic origin.
Events in Sweden
Events to commemorate the Roma victims of the Nazi genocide were organised in the Swedish cities of Stockholm and Gothenburg.
