纳粹德国在二战期间对欧洲罗姆人和辛提人进行了大规模屠杀，造成约50万人丧生[1]。其中最为惨烈的事件发生在1944年8月2-3日晚间，奥斯维辛-比克瑙集中营中数千名罗姆人被送入毒气室遇难[1]。德国历经数十年才正式承认这一历史罪行，并在2015年欧洲议会的宣布下，将8月2日确立为欧洲罗姆人和辛提人大屠杀纪念日[1]。
东欧各国随后相继建立了对这一历史的官方纪念机制[1]。波兰自2011年起、捷克自2015年起、斯洛伐克和匈牙利自2005年起，均在8月2日举行纪念活动[1]。罗马尼亚、克罗地亚、北马其顿等国也分别从2020年、2014年、2017年开始官方纪念[1]。
除了纳粹占领期间的大屠杀，东欧地区还经历了其他针对罗姆人的暴力事件[1]。罗马尼亚在伊翁·安东内斯库独裁统治下独立组织了大规模驱逐行动，向特兰尼斯特里亚地区遣送罗姆人，造成约11000人被谋杀或死于饥荒和疾病[1]。匈牙利在2008-2009年间经历了新纳粹分子针对罗姆人的连续种族谋杀事件，共造成6人遇难、55人受伤[1]。
Germany took decades to formally acknowledge the Nazi genocide of approximately 500,000 Roma and Sinti people across Europe before establishing August 2 as the European Roma and Sinti Holocaust Memorial Day [1]. The date commemorates the night of August 2-3, 1944, when thousands of Roma prisoners were sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp [1]. In 2015, the European Parliament officially designated August 2 as the memorial day for this tragedy [1].
Eastern European nations have adopted varying approaches to remembering this genocide, with commemoration efforts beginning at different times across the region [1]. Poland has observed August 2 annually since 2011, while the Czech Republic began in 2015 and Slovakia and Hungary initiated their commemorations in 2005 [1]. Romania, which under Ion Antonescu's dictatorship independently organized mass deportations to Transnistria resulting in approximately 11,000 Roma deaths from murder, starvation, and disease, officially recognized the remembrance in 2020 [1]. Croatia started its annual commemoration in 2014, and North Macedonia in 2017 [1]. Beyond Nazi persecution, Hungary experienced a surge of far-right violence between 2008 and 2009 when neo-Nazi perpetrators killed 6 Roma and wounded 55 others [1].