2 August was officially declared by the European Parliament in 2015 as the "European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day" commemorating 500,000 Sinti and Roma murdered in Nazi-occupied Europe. The commemoration ceremony was organized by the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma and the Association of Roma in Poland in cooperation with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
From March 1943 to July 1944, the National Socialists deported 23,000 Roma and Sinti from eleven European countries to the former German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. Nearly all found death there. On August 2, 1944, the last remaining 4.200-4.300 Sinti and Roma in camp section BIIe – the so called “gypsy family camp” – were brutally murdered, and bodies were burned in a pit next to Crematorium V. Various accounts speak of attempts of resistance on that day, as well as of a resistance against a first planned liquidation of the camp in April-May 1944.
Further info about current research debates in the Memoria magazine (July 2018 edition) of the Auschwitz Museum.