New exhibition commemorating wartime Roma genocide opens in Terezín

Terezín, North Bohemia, Aug 3 (CTK) — An exhibition detailing genocide of the Roma during the Second World War opened Monday in the Small Fortress of the Terezín Memorial spokesman Tomas Rieger has said in a press release. The exhibition is organized by the Romani Culture Museum.

“The Terezín Memorial helps repay the moral debt that Czech society has to the commemoration or rather non-commemoration of the Roma genocide,” Rieger said.

The exhibition will be long-term, it will last until the end of 2023.

On the night of August 2 to August 3, 1944, the Nazis murdered about 4,300 Roma men, women, and children during the liquidation of the so-called gypsy family camp in Oswiecim-Brzezinka (Auschwitz-Birkenau).

The Terezín Memorial annually remembers this tragic event and raises Roma flags on its buildings.

August 2 has been the European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day since 2015.

The exhibition was originally to open on April 9, but all Terezín Memorial buildings had to be closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The exhibition shows the atrocities which the Roma experienced in 20 information panels with photographs and texts.

Ambassadors and representatives of several countries attended the opening this week. Traditional Roma music was played and the anti-epidemic measures were observed.