Museum of Romani Culture director speaking today at Czech Senate and Václav Havel Library, Holocaust Memorial Day also commemorated at Czech Foreign Ministry

The Czech Senate will once again hold its traditional commemorative meeting today on the occasion of the Day of Holocaust Remembrance and Prevention of Crimes against Humanity. In the afternoon, the meeting will be followed by reverential events such as a Czech-Israeli-American commemoration of murdered or persecuted diplomats of Jewish origin at Czernin Palace, where the Czech Foreign Ministry is housed. 

A thematic debate on commemorating the Roma Holocaust will take place at the Václav Havel Library from 15:00. News server Romea.cz will livestream it here (in Czech only).

The presidents of both parliamentary chambers, Czech Senator Miloš Vystrčil (Civic Democratic Party - ODS) and Markéta Pekarová Adamová (TOP 09) will both speak at the Senate event, as will former Auschwitz prisoner Helga Hošková-Weissová, director of the Museum of Romani Culture Jana Horváthová, and chair of the Foundation for Holocaust Victims, Michal Klíma. The Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský (Pirates), Israeli Minister for Social Equality Mejrav Cohen, Israeli Ambassador to the Czech Republic Anna Azari, and American Chargé d'Affaires in the Czech Republic Jennifer Bachus will take part in the reverential event at the headquarters of the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

The Day of Holocaust Remembrance commemorates 27 January 1945, when the Auschwitz Concentration and Extermination Camp in Nazi-occupied southern Poland was liberated. Between 1940 and 1945, 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, died there. 

The prisoners of Auschwitz included 50 000 Czechoslovak citizens, of whom about 6 000 survived. The Nazis murdered six million people of Jewish descent during World War II. 

The Nazis also targeted people of Romani ancestry for murder, with the Czech Press Agency reporting the number of such victims as approximately 220 000. However, other estimates put the number at 800 000, or anywhere between one-quarter to one-half of the prewar population of Roma and Sinti in Europe.