On August 2, we annually commemorate the International Memorial Day of the Victims of the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti. This day is associated with the tragic night of 2 to 3 August 1944, when the mass liquidation of the so-called Gypsy camp in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination concentration camp was ordered. Within a few hours, approximately 4 300 Roma men, women and children were gassed, who came also from the territory of the present-day Czech Republic. This year marks the 80th anniversary of this tragic event, which was one of the turning points in the Nazi genocide of European Roma and Sinti.
Our organization joins in this remembrance and honors the memory of all the victims. We wish to express our deep respect and reverence for those who suffered and died during this tragic period. At the same time, we would like to recall that during the Second World War there were many Roma and Sinti who actively opposed Nazism throughout Europe and fought against it in various ways. These people, often with incredible courage and determination, joined the resistance, helped save lives or fought in the armies of the Allies.
One of them was Imrich Horváth (1912-1977), who came from Košice region (today Slovakia), which belonged to Hungary during the Second World War. Like many Romani men there, he had to join the auxiliary unit of the Hungarian army, with which he was sent to the Eastern Front, where he fell into Soviet captivity. At the end of 1943, he joined the Czechoslovak army-in-exile and subsequently took part in the Carpatho-Dukla Operation and the fighting in support of the Slovak National Uprising. He lived in Pilsen for the rest of his life and received several important state awards for his wartime activities, such as the Commemorative Medal of the Czechoslovak Army Abroad and the Czechoslovak War Cross 1939.
The story of Imrich Horváth is one of those we are working with in our educational project „Shared Experience. Personal Stories within the Local History“ supported by the German Foundation EVZ – Erinnerung, Verantwortung, Zukunft, the Czech-German Fund for the Future and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic. The aim of the project is to motivate young people in particular to take an interest in our common modern history and its critical examination. Recalling individual stories, such as that of Imrich Horváth, helps us to realize that the bravery and determination of individuals can have a far-reaching impact not only on our collective history but also on the present.