In 2009, on the night between 2 and 3 August, in Kisléta, Hungary, a Roma woman, Mária Balog, was shot dead in her home, and her 13-year-old daughter was seriously injured. The crime was the latest in a series of attacks in which six Hungarian Roma citizens, including a five-year-old child, were killed.
The families of the victims of the nine attacks, including the relatives of Mária Balog from Kisléta, gather every year for a prayer and have become friends with members of the Community of Sant'Egidio, who do not want us to forget the innocent victims whose lives were cut short by senseless hatred. Their presence is a reminder that memory and prayer must be preserved.
On the same night, 65 years earlier, in 1944 in Auschwitz-Birkenau, nearly three thousand Roma and Sinti were exterminated by the SS.
On Friday, 3 August 2025, the Community of Sant'Egidio in Budapest held a prayer vigil in the Church of St Joseph in Józsefváros to commemorate these events. The celebration was presided over by Monsignor Gábor Mohos, auxiliary bishop of Esztergom-Budapest, and was attended by numerous representatives of the Reformed, Baptist and Anglican Churches and Lutheran Bishop Tamás Fabiny.
Rabbi Péter Radvánszki also participated, representing the Jewish community, and the Secretary of State for Social Equality and Roma Relations of the Ministry of the Interior.
After the names and stories of the victims were read out, young people and children lit candles in memory of the victims in front of the icon of the Mother of Mercy.
