The European Union's Equality Commissioner Helena Dalli said during the ceremonies that the world must never forget the Roma persecution during the Holocaust, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
"Today, we must stand united for Roma equality, inclusion, and participation," Dalli said.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a letter to those attending the ceremonies that "the Roma have lived in Poland for over 600 years" and that "the extermination of the Roma" by the Nazi Germans during World War II was "a tragic chapter of this heritage."
Roma Holocaust Memorial Day is held every year at Auschwitz on August 2, the anniversary of the killing of more than 4,000 Roma and Sinti prisoners, including women and children, in the camp’s gas chambers in 1944.
The event usually brings together former Auschwitz prisoners from various countries as well as Polish and foreign government officials and diplomats.
Only 2,000 of the some 23,000 Roma and Sinti from 14 countries who were imprisoned at Auschwitz survived the ordeal, according to some estimates.
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Source: IAR, PAP
Click on the audio player above for a report by Radio Poland's Michał Owczarek.