President Speaks on Roma Holocaust, Condemns Spread of Hate-fuelled Ideologies

Bratislava, August 2 (TASR) - On the occasion of Roma Holocaust Memorial Day, President Peter Pellegrini condemned the spread of hate-fuelled ideologies, recalling on a social network the victims of such senseless violence, which must not be repeated. "Persecution of people not on the basis of their personal guilt, but on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, social status or political group, always and without exception leads to human suffering, to the specific suffering of specific people," stressed Pellegrini. Up to the present day, it is impossible to accept without chills the fact that someone decides to kill millions of people in the name of his hate-fuelled ideology, just because they are different in something, wrote the president. "It's terrible when someone feeds similar ideologies even today," noted Pellegrini. Roma Holocaust Memorial Day marks the events of August 2 and 3, 1944, when almost 3,000 Roma were killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp. Historians estimate that the Roma Holocaust had approximately 500,000 victims during WWII. The total number of victims of the Roma Holocaust in Slovakia is estimated at 1,000. ko/df