Roma honoured the memory of their ancestors who revolted 81 years ago in the Gypsy camp that was part of the German Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp. Director of the Roma History and Culture Centre Władysław Kwiatkowski emphasized that it was an act of maintaining dignity in the face of death.
Threats to the Roma minority have increased since the far-right won the presidential election, which was cancelled at the end of 2024. But on the second round on Sunday, May 18, many Roma are paradoxically ready to vote for these ultranationalist candidates.
A Swiss politician says he wants to forbid travellers to enter Switzerland, and wants to kick them out with bulldozers… Isn’t that racist? Switzerland actually had an interdiction of entry for travellers from 1497 to 1972 (yes, that late).
Shame.
From May 25 to 31, Prague will once again become the capital of Romani culture. One of the largest and most recognized Romani festivals in the world – Khamoro 2025 – brings a varied program full of music, discussions, film and literature to the streets, libraries, theatres and clubs. The festival is traditionally organized by the Slovo 21 organization, and this year, visitors can look forward to performances by artists from the Czech Republic and abroad.
A memorial service was organized by the Roma and Sinti Association in the Czech Republic in cooperation with the Association of Christian Aid Brno. Its aim was to honour the memory of the Roma victims of Nazism and to commemorate the heroic uprising of the Roma and Sinti in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, which took place on May 16, 1944 – 81 years ago.
April 16th, Roma Resistance Day, commemorates the resistance of Roma inmates in the Auschwitz “Zigeunerlager” when the Nazis liquidated the camp.
A new book on the history of Roma in Bosnia and Herzegovina was recently published. It is a joint publication of the Sarajevo University institute for history and the Zagreb Ivo Pilar Institute. It is an important cross disciplinary work featuring many new research and facts about Roma history in the region.
A round table on distortions of the Roma genocide was held in Zagreb on the 14th of May.
The parliamentary group of the Slovenian Democratic Party has submitted a request to convene an urgent session of the Committee for Petitions, Human Rights and Equal Opportunities. At the session, they want to discuss the item entitled Piety and dignified burial of the murdered victims from the clandestine cemetery Jama pod Macesnova gorica.
The reason for the request is the decision of the Ministry of Défense to temporarily transfer more than 3,000 mortal remains of victims of interwar and post-war violence, some of them Roma, which have so far been stored in inappropriate conditions in the garage of Komunala Kočevje, to the ossuary near Škofja Loka. “Despite announcements about seeking consensus with relatives and the general public, the transfer was carried out unilaterally, without prior agreement on the final burial location,” the SDS parliamentary group warns.
The intention of the Slovak Minister of Education Tomáš Drucker to introduce compulsory pre-primary education from the age of three is not only causing resentment among a group of parents who want to have their child at home at a young age, but also a consideration of whether it will be truly effective and quickly applicable in practice. Currently, it seems most likely that the ministry will need finances for this.
The Ministry of Education claims that it wants to help children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds with the law.
A Roma family was the victim of a brutal attack by a mob in a village in Serbia.
Three perpetrators of the brutal attack on a Roma camp in Lviv in 2018 were sentenced to prison after seven years. The Sychov District Court sent two attackers to ten years in prison, the main organizer received a sentence of ten years and 6 months. The verdict is not yet final. The European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) reports.
Two articles on the commemoration in Lety last week end. Both stress the fact that hatred against Roma is on the rise again.
The Roma and Sinti Holocaust Memorial in Bohemia was opened in Lety by the Museum of Roma Culture last April. According to the museum’s director, Jana Horváthová, the memorial’s indoor exhibition was visited by about 10,000 people in its first year of operation last year. And she emphasized that among them were numerous school trips.
“But the Museum of Romani Culture cannot function alone in this matter (education). A national education policy is essential. It is absolutely essential that the topic of Romani history and culture be included in the framework educational programs, that it be taught in schools at least from the second level (elementary school). It is not yet,” said Horváthová.
The Slovak ministry of Labour wants to push for so-called “activation work” for long term unemployed. This means doing some menial jobs for municipalities, and, according to statistics, only 1 to 2% of people in this scheme find a job afterwards.
“One of Us. Roma and Sinti in the Resistance” is a podcast against anti-Gypsyism, proposed by the Carta di Roma Association and the Human Rights Foundation.
The document intended for students and addresses the issue of anti-Gypsyism to counter stereotypes that dehumanize an entire community and to remember the Roma and Sinti who fought for liberation from Nazi-fascism. “They did not fight for a homeland that discriminated against them,” explains Danilo De Biasio, author of the work, “they fought together with other Italians to bring back democracy.”
The traditional commemorative ceremony honoring the memory of the Holocaust and its Romani and Sinti victims took place at the site of what was previously called the “Gypsy Camp” in Lety u Písku on Sunday, may 11th.
A report by the Voice of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians, titled “Assessing Behavioral Change in Journalistic Reporting on the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian Communities,” highlights significant progress in the way Kosovo media report on the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian communities.
For once, quite a good article on Roma in Ukraine and specifically in Transcarpathia. While they obviously do not know the various Roma communities, (Servi, Xaladytka, Polska, Kirimlides, Ursaria, Kalderaša, Lovara, etc.) they know that they are different with different histories and issues.
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