April 8th is an old Romani festival from Transylvania – the “day of the horses” (a festive occasion when the horses are led out of their winter shelters, and decorated with garlands). This festival has recently taken on a new meaning for many Roma worldwide to celebrate the date of the first Romani World Congress in 1971.
On this important day for the Romani people, the victims of the Samudaripen are commemorated, and remembered because they were deported and killed just for being born Roma. In order that this terrible tragedy of history does not ever repeat itself, the Romani people feel that it is important for all of them to come together and to get to know each other. If the mother of racism is ignorance, its father is egoism and in making the Romani culture known to all, suspicion, hostility, hatred and scorn towards the Romani people will cease and simply be a subject for historians to write about, of a time when the Romani people were once badly looked upon and treated but are no longer.
source: "La voix des Rroms"