Minister Zitnanska Lays Wreath to Comemmorate Roma Holocaust

Dunajska Streda, August 2 (TASR) – Justice Minister Lucia Zitnanska laid a wreath at the Roma Holocaust Memorial in Dunajska Streda (Trnava region) on Tuesday to commemorate the Roma murdered at the end of WWII, TASR learnt on the same day.

The event, attended also by foreign delegations, was organised by the Institute for Romani Studies, Methodology and Practical Application in Dunajska Streda in cooperation with the local municipality. The ceremony was attended also by a delegation from the President’s Office, headed by Office Head Stefan Rozkopal.

Participants commemorated some 60 Romas who were massacred by members of the Hungarian national socialist Cross Arrow Party and Hungarian police [the region was annexed by Hungary during WWII – ed. note] on Good Friday 1945 near the villages Trhova Hradska and Topolniky.

Another subject of commemoration was the picture of bishop’s vicar Odon Janovics, who in early 1945 personally prevented members of the Cross Arrow Party from deporting local Roma of Dunajska Streda.

After laying the wreaths, Zitnanska told TASR that this day represents for her another memory of the Holocaust and the extermination of peoples. “There are other nationalities; people of different faith and worldviews. In order to prevent history from repeating itself, we need to commemorate this day,” she underlined.