Explore the roots of antisemitism and antigypsyism in Central Europe.
This interactive timeline is divided into four historical periods and allows you to move through time by scrolling or by jumping to a specific period, filter events by country, and view short descriptions by hovering over each event, with selected entries offering more detailed historical context.
EXPLORE THE PAST
2004 – 2024
The European Union
Across 2004–2024, antisemitism and antigypsyism in Central Europe persisted and adapted despite EU accession, shifting from overt violence toward politicised discourse, institutional discrimination, and digitally mediated hate. While legal frameworks and inclusion strategies expanded, weak enforcement enabled far-right actors, populist narratives, and online networks to normalise conspiracy theories, historical revisionism, and collective blame. Jewish and Roma communities continued to face symbolic attacks on memory sites, segregation in housing and education, police abuse, and renewed scapegoating during crises such as migration, COVID-19, and military conflicts—revealing a persistent gap between formal commitments to equality and lived experience.
2023
Fear-mongering in Polgár (Hajdú-Bihar County)
Antigypsy Demonstration at Venyige Street Prison
2020
Destruction of Roma Holocaust Memorial, Budapest
Antigypsy Demonstration in Deák Square, Budapest
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán publicly questioned a court ruling regarding state compensation for segregated Roma pupils
2019
Police Brutality in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County
Police Instruction on Handling Hate Crimes
2018
2014
Violent Assault on Roma Public Workers in Heves County
Forced Evictions in Miskolc’s “Numbered Streets”
2012
2011
The National Social Inclusion Strategy
Adoption of the New ‘Fundamental Law’
Patrolling in Gyöngyöspata
2008
The “Érpatak Model” of Local Governance
Nationwide Anti-Roma Serial Killings
2007
Establishment of the Hungarian Guard Movement
Bethlen Gábor Program of Jobbik
2006
1991 – 2004
The Time of Democratization
The collapse of state socialism brought democratic freedoms but also enabled the re-emergence of antisemitism and antigypsyism across Central Europe. As economies and national identities were rebuilt, far-right subcultures, nationalist rhetoric, and historical revisionism gained ground, leading to street violence, symbolic attacks, and hostile public discourse. Jewish communities faced vandalism and Holocaust denial, while Roma communities experienced severe violence, segregation, and police abuse amid economic upheaval. Although minority-rights frameworks expanded, inconsistent enforcement allowed racialised exclusion to persist, revealing the fragility of new democracies in protecting vulnerable groups.
2004
2003
the Establishment of the far-right political party Jobbik
Adoption of the Equal Treatment and Equal Opportunities Act
2002
Anti-Roma protests against the resettlement of Roma evicted from Paks
Jászladány School Segregation Case
1997
Eviction of Roma in Zámoly
Attempt to evict Roma in Székesfehérvár
Segregated graduation ceremony at a school in Tiszavasvári
1995
Skinhead Attack on a Roma Family in Gyöngyös
Attack on a Roma Charity Event in Kalocsa
1994
1993
1992
1945 – 1991
The Time of Authoritarianism
After 1945, antisemitism and antigypsyism in Central Europe did not disappear but were reshaped under communist rule through surveillance, repression, and ideological control. Jewish communities faced postwar hostility, obstructed restitution, and later state-led “anti-Zionism” that marginalised Jewish identity, censored Holocaust memory, detroyed careers and forced to emigration[JW1.1]. Roma communities experienced systematic discrimination through forced settlement, cultural erasure, segregated education, and racialised policing, justified as socialist “assimilation.” While regimes proclaimed equality and antifascism, both forms of racism were embedded in state institutions and everyday governance, leaving Jewish and Roma communities silenced, controlled, and vulnerable on the eve of democratic transition.
1990
1989
The 1989 National Round Table Talks
The establishment of the Anti-Ghetto Committee
1979
1974
The Ethnic Dimensions of the “CS-Housing” Program
Using public health measures to influence the birth rates of Roma women
Statistics of “Gypsy crime”
1961
1959
Police beating up the members of the Nail Smith Small-Scale Industrial Production Cooperative in a pub
1957
1955
Introduction of “Black ID Cards”
Forced bathings of Roma
1947
Forced Bathings in Hajdú County
Quarantine and Forced Resettlement in Hajdúhadház
1946
1939 – 1945
Times of War and Genocide
Between 1939 and 1945, antisemitism and antigypsyism across Central Europe were transformed into state-organised systems of persecution and genocide under Nazi occupation and collaborationist regimes. Jews were systematically stripped of rights, property, and livelihoods before being ghettoised, deported, and murdered in extermination camps, while Roma and Sinti were subjected to forced settlement, labour, internment, mass executions, and deportation as part of the Porajmos. These crimes were enabled not only by Nazi policy but also by local administrations, police forces, and societal participation, embedding racial violence into everyday governance. By the war’s end, Jewish life had been almost entirely destroyed and Roma communities devastated, leaving legacies of loss and trauma that would shape post-war marginalisation and memory across the region.
1945
Soviet Occupation of Hungary
Várpalota massacre
Massacre in Lajoskomárom
1944
Massacre in Lengyel
Deportation from Bicsérd
Csillagerőd interment camp
Massacre in Jászkarajenő
Massacre in Doboz
Establishment of the “gypsy” labour battalions
Deportation of Roma from Ondód
Gypsy Raids in Southern Transdanubia: Somogy, Baranya, and Veszprém
Operation Margarethe: Nazi Occupation of Hungary
1940
Hungary joined the Axis Powers
Hungarian Annexation of Northern Transylvania
Introduction of the National Register of Gypsies
1939
FROM MEMORY
TO MONITORING
You’ve explored the past – now see how history is connected to the present. View recent incidents of antisemitism and antigypsyism across Central Europe.