Czech Republic: Commemorations of Romani Holocaust victims tomorrow in Prague

Prague-based Christian and Jewish organizations have prepared several commemorative events for tomorrow’s International Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day. The religious groups plan to honor Roma Holocaust victims in several ways.

Representatives of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, the Jewish Community of Prague, the Terezín Initiative Institute and the Žižka Chorus of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church will fly Romani flags tomorrow from several buildings and hold a cultural/spiritual evening in the Prague quarter of Žižkov. The flying of the Romani flag at three sites in Prague will take place at 14:00 on the building of the Jewish Town Hall in Prague on Maiselova Street, the headquarters of the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren in Jungmannova Street, and the building of the Žižka Chorus of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church (ŽIŽKŮV SBOR CÍRKVE ČESKOSLOVENSKÉ HUSITSKÉ) on Barikád Square in the Žižkov quarter.

At 19:00 there will be a cultural/spiritual evening at the Žižka Chorus of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church involving Holocaust survivors’ testimonies, Roma music, and specialties of traditional Roma cuisine. The gathering will be attended by Olga Fečová, a Roma woman whose family survived the Holocaust in Slovakia, and Mr Asaf Auerbach, who was one of the children rescued from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia by Nicholas Winton.

During the night of 2 August and the early morning hours of 3 August 1944 alone, 2 898 Roma and Sinti were murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp. A total of 23 000 Roma and Sinti were deported to Auschwitz during the war, 20 000 of whom were eventually murdered there.