Seimas extended the list of memorable days

Press release, 28 June 2019

 

 

The Seimas has extended the list of memorable days by adding 2^nd August as a day of remembrance of the Roma genocide.

 

‘This is an internationally recognised day. A massive genocide against the Roma people took place in August. Expressing unity, support for and understanding of the idea as well as its compassion with the Roma, Lithuania took a decision to mark 2^nd August as the day of the genocide of the Roma people as a phenomenon that should not be tolerated with respect to any nation’, said Valerijus Simulik, Chair of the Seimas Committee on Human Rights, when addressing the Press Office of the Seimas.

 

The amendment of the Law on Memorable Days  (Draft No XIII-3232 (2) was adopted with 89 votes in favour, no votes against and 5 abstentions.

 

The Explanatory Memorandum to the adopted legal act states that International Organisations formally recognise the fact of the genocide of the Roma during the World War II and seek to ensure that this day is marked in all the countries on 2^nd of August. On 15 April 2015, on the occasion of the International Roma Day, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the anti-Gypsyism in Europe and EU recognition of the memorial day of the Roma genocide during World War II, which acknowledged the historical fact of the Roma genocide during the World War II and called on all states to mark this date and declare 2^nd of August the day of the Roma genocide.

 

This day was not randomly chosen since on 2 August 1944 in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland, the ‘Gypsy camp’ was destroyed and around 3000 people were killed. The 75th anniversary of the liquidation of the Roma camp will be commemorated in August this year.

 

 

 

Saulė Eglė Trembo, Chief Specialist, Press Office, Information and Communication Department,

tel. +370 5 239 6203, e-mail: [email protected]