Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma 2025

"Then one day they put us on a transport, and we arrived at Auschwitz. There, we were herded onto the ramp, where they tattooed these numbers on us. On every single one of us. I got 57 40 with a “Z”, meaning gypsy no. 57 40. Auschwitz was this horrific, abominable hell that we experienced. That hell is not easy to describe. You could say that we were in mortal danger every minute we were there."

Johann Mongo Stojka, Austrian Rom and Auschwitz survivor

The horrific crimes committed against the Roma and Sinti during the Second World War will be commemorated on 2 August 2025 as part of the National Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma. In particular, the victims of the "gypsy camp" at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was liquidated on the night of 2 to 3 August 1944, will be remembered.

In Austria, several events will take place to mark this day of remembrance - to keep alive the memory of the murdered Roma and Romani women, Sinti and Sintizze, and to take a stand against racism and discrimination:

• On Friday, 1 August at 10:00 a.m., a memorial service organised by the Parliament and the Advisory Council for Ethnic Groups will take place in the Weiheraum of the Äußeres Burgtor in Vienna. The Second President of the National Council, Peter Haubner, and the Managing DIrector of the National Fund, Judith Pfeffer, will attend. The event will be accompanied by a minute's silence and the laying of wreaths.
• At 10:30 a.m., a commemorative event will take place in Lackenbach in Burgenland, where a detention camp for Roma and Sinti existed during the Nazi era, at the invitation of the Ministry of the Interior. National Fund Managing Director Hannah Lessing will attend this event.
• At Ceija-Stojka-Platz, named after the Austrian Roma activist, the Student Union of Austrian Roma and Romani Women (HÖR) has organised a memorial service at 6 p.m. for the approximately 500,000 Roma and Sinti murdered in the Porajmos.

• On 2 August 2025 at 12 noon, the Sinti and Roma victims of the Holocaust will be commemorated athe the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in an international memorial ceremony marking the 81st anniversary of the "gypsy camp's" dissolution.

These events commemorate the unimaginable suffering endured by Roma and Sinti under National Socialism – and strengthen the discourse on the current challenges facing ethnic groups and an inclusive future.

A Central Memorial for Roma and Sinti

With the amendment to the National Fund Law, Federal Law Gazette I No. 157/2023, the National Fund was entrusted with the planning, construction and upkeep of a memorial for the victims of National Socialism from the Roma and Sinti communities.

The Second President of the National Council and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Fund, Peter Haubner, emphasises, as do the two Managing Directors of the National Fund, Hannah Lessing and Judith Pfeffer, that the establishment of the memorial is a further act of recognition and an expression of historical responsibility towards the victims of National Socialism from the Roma and Sinti communities and their descendants. All those involved attach particular importance to careful groundwork in order to place the subsequent implementation process on a solid, mutually supported foundation.

Publishing Life Stories

In the Life Stories Database of the National Fund and in its book series ‘Lives Remembered. Life Stories of Victims of National Socialism,’ the Fund publishes testimonies of Holocaust survivors from the Roma and Sinti ethnic groups. The sixth volume of the series, which deals with the topic of ‘Survival in Auschwitz,’ recounts the fates of several members of the Stojka family, who were persecuted as ‘Gypsies,’ as well as those of Anton Müller and Franz Rosenbach, who, as Rom and Sinto, survived the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp.