Monthly Archives: August 2022

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Partisans

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The movie “How I Became a Partisan” directed by Vera Lacková will be broadcast by RTVS on the occasion of the 78th anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising. The film will remind viewers that Roma also joined the uprising. For years, speaking about Nazi persecutions of the Roma minority was taboo. Concentration camps, houses burnt down, murder of families… Communists did not want to have Roma heroes or victims of Nazism. History has forgotten them. “It’s as if we Roma don’t count. At the same time, Roma culture influences and enriches the cultures of the countries where Roma live. A good example is Spain and flamenco dance. Hardly anyone knows that it comes from the Roma,” said the author of the film, Vera Lacková.

Germany News Western Europe

Rostock, 30 years ago

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Thirty years ago, a massive racist pogrom took place in Rostock Lichtenhagen. It was mostly directed at Vietnamese immigrants but also touched a few Roma.

It highlighted the existent of violent racism in Germany, something that has unfortunately continued. Other lessons, such as how the police should intervene have been learnt.

Hungary News Eastern Europe

Monika Lakatos

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An interview with Monika Lakatos. The singer, who in 2020 received the Womex Lifetime Achievement Award as the first artist of Roma origin, was described by a contemporary who also works in classical music as follows: a fragile, modest, non-marketing performer.

Mónika Lakatos grew up in a family with seven children, she has one daughter, she became a grandmother at the age of 41. His parents were engaged in horse trading, and he fondly remembers the horse fairs from his childhood.

Some of the statements in the interview will certainly reinforce some of the prevalent stereotypes about Roma, with, for example arranged marriages.

Belgium News Western Europe

Brussels: Begging or not?

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According to the police, Roma families constitute the bulk of begging with children in the capital. Five years ago, the police identified ten to fifteen active families near the Grand-Place and Rue Neuve. At the beginning of 2022, it counted six times more.

Begging with minors was forbidden, then the law was suspended, and if finally again forbidden, with fines of up to 350 EUR. The discussion whether this interdiction is the right solution are ongoing.

Germany News Western Europe

Germany: Testimony

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Romeo Tiberiade, a contemporary witness of the anti-foreigner pogrom in Rostock  in 1992 speaks for the first time. Tiberiade came to Germany with his family from Romania in 1992. In conversation with his daughter, Izabela Tiberiade, he reports on the flight to Germany, the pogrom and his family’s life after the pogrom.

Romeo Tiberiade is chairman of the Roma party “Pro Europa” in Dolj and adviser to the Mayor of Craiova on Roma issues. He lives with his family in Craiova.

Izabela Tiberiade is a law graduate from Malmö University and active in the Europe-wide network “Dikh He Na Bister” in memory of the Porajmos. She lives in Malmo.

Bulgaria News Eastern Europe

Bulgaria and Roma Weddings

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The Bulgarian press seems obsessed by Roma weddings. This time, the story of a couple who have a restaurant in Plovdiv close to a Mahala – a Roma neighbourhood – and who complain about the noise from the celebrations in the Roma Mahala. They say they call the police regularly, to no avail.

France News Western Europe

French Chronicle …

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Unfortunately, more news on Roma this week in France. Near Nantes, Romanian Roma families who were expulsed twice in 24 hours on July 6 and 7th have finally found a place where they can stay. The town of Rezé together with the city of Nantes has set a location aside where the Roma can put up their camp. Also In Nantes, Roma lost everything last week in a fire and the commune is appealing for help. Other news are a fire in a garbage dump in a Roma camp in Marseilles; a squat closed near Paris; and finally, two young Roma arrested near Paris for burglary in several houses.

Germany News Western Europe

Ursula Heilig

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Ursula Heilig, born Hartmann, died at the age of 85. She was born on February 28, 1937, in Frankenstein into a Silesian Sinti family. Her family ran a circus company. From 1940 to 1945, as a small child, she lived in hiding in Upper Silesia with her mother Auguste Sperlich and other relatives under inhumane conditions. She suffered severe damage to her health as a result of escaping and living in hiding. Large parts of her relatives were murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

May she rest in peace.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czech Republic: Resignation

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Monika Šimůnková, the Czech Deputy Public Defender of Rights, has resigned. She has said she cannot continue to work with Public Defender of Rights Stanislav Křeček who has made several statements that can only be qualified as racist.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Roma Politics in the Czech Republic

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A Romano politician in the Czech Republic is compiling a list of Roma whom he deems to be traitors. He is mostly referring to Roma who collaborate with extreme rightist parties. In any case, this create quite an echo on social media.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czech Prime Minister on Holocaust

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The sad fate of the Roma from Bohemia and Moravia remains not only a tragic, but also a lesser-known chapter of our history. The Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala (Civil Democrats) said on Thursday at the memorial for the Genocide of Roma and Sinti in Hodonín near Kunštát in Moravia. The 79th anniversary of the transport of 749 Roma to the Auschwitz concentration camp was commemorated there. On the territory of today’s Czech Republic there were two concentration camps for Roma – in Hodonín near Kunštát and in Lety near Písek. Fiala emphasized: “If we want to learn a lesson from history, it is necessary not only to know tragic events as sentences in textbooks, but also to be able to connect them to specific places and the fate of people.”

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czech Republic, Holocaust and Politics

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The Czech Prime Minister will be attending a ceremony honouring the Roma victims of the Holocaust  at the Hodonin un Kunštatu Memorial on August 18th.

News Western Europe Spain

Spain, Attacks, and Roma

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The Spanish Gitana Society and the Federation of Gitana Women have filed a complaint against the mayor of Íllora (Granada), Antonio Salazar, for alleged incitement to hatred after the violent death of a 19-year-old boy at the town festivals. The incitement concerns acts by citizen who have detained a 23-year-old Gitano, and for the damage to Roma homes the municipality of Poniente de Granada.

Specifically, the Federation of Gitana Women considers the alderman “promoter and instigator” of the assaults registered in the town against several Gitana families and has even requested his arrest.

According to the Spanish Gitana Society, these are “serious crimes”, which “have been generated against Gitana families”, for which they ask that the mayor be “immediately arrested”.

These attacks are becoming more frequent is Spain.

News Eastern Europe Ukraine

Ukraine Roma

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An article in Spanish on the situation of Roma in the Ukraine. It is based on the visit of the Sinto MEP Romeo Franz in the Ukraine. “The situation of Roma in Ukraine is unbearable, I couldn’t believe that Roma live in such conditions in Europe,” said German Roma MEP Romeo Franz, one of the participants in the delegation that visited Ukraine, at a press conference. It is possible that soe of the Roma IDPs will suffer hunger this winter in the Ukraine.

Italy News Americas News Western Europe

International Romnja Congress

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The University of Southern Patagonia of Argentina – UNPA which has been involved for years in spreading the Romani culture and above all it deals with the condition of women Romani women is organising an International Congress of Romani Women from the 17th to the 19th of August.

In addition to Argentina, Romani women from Brazil, the USA, Spain, Romania, Ukraine, Italy will attend. For Italy, Giulia Di Rocco has been called for the second time to take part and will talk about the situation of Romani women between discrimination and struggles for gender equality.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Serbia and Roma

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In a town near Leskovac, Serbia, Roma mostly speak Serbian, and they have a humorous explanation for that in a video.

This is to be contracted to the general situation in Serbia where, according to a UNESCO report, almost 60 percent of Roma children in the Balkans do not attend secondary school, and many do not know any other language than Romanes.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Stereotypes

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An article about a Roma wedding in the Czech town of Jirkov highlights the views of the majority on Roma and some of the stereotype: “A wedding that you don’t usually see. Romani brides and grooms Patrícia and Radek from the Czech town of Jirkov in the Chomutov district did not leave the preparation for the most beautiful day of their lives to chance and pulled out all the stops. Their wedding was exactly as it should be for Roma – luxurious and quite noisy!”

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