
Porajmos

The Romani genocide or Romani Holocaust, also known as the Porajmos (Romani pronunciation: IPA: [pʰoɽajˈmos]), or Samudaripen (""Mass killing""), was the planned and attempted effort, often described as a genocide, during World War II by the government of Nazi Germany and its allies to exterminate the Romani (Gypsy) people of Europe. Under the rule of Adolf Hitler, a supplementary decree to the Nuremburg Laws was issued on 26 November 1935, defining Gypsies as ""enemies of the race-based state"", the same category as Jews. Thus, the fate of Roma in Europe in some ways paralleled that of the Jews. Historians estimate that 220,000 to 500,000 Romani were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators, or more than 25% of the slightly less than 1 million Roma in Europe at the time. Some estimates of the death toll are as high as 1.5 million. In 1982, West Germany formally recognized that genocide had been committed against the Romani. In 2011 the Polish Government passed a resolution for the official recognition of the 2nd of August as a day of commemoration of the genocide.