The Krakow somewhat belated celebrations of International Roma Day are taking place today place at the Multicultural Center at ul. Zabłocie 20. The program includes a debate, workshops, tasting of traditional dishes and a concert by Marek Balog – an outstanding Roma artist.
On May 5, 2025, the Municipality of Lublin concluded agreements with the Voivode of Lublin to implement tasks under the “Social and Civic Integration Program for Roma in Poland for the years 2021-2030.”
The projects plans to increase the social integration of Roma and non-Roma children through participation in a joint holiday trip to summer camps in 2025 and to purchase school materials, textbooks, and sports articles for Roma children.
Whether this is enough for integration remains to be seen…
Olena Vaidalovich, defender of Roma rights says that some Roma Don’t Admit Who They Are
In refugee shelters, Ukrainians of Roma origin were separated from other Ukrainians. Coordinators said they were trying to avoid tensions. “Better” Ukrainians had more comfortable conditions – beds, chairs. Where there were Roma, there might have been nothing. I saw children sleeping on cardboard boxes in winter.
On 16 April 2025, a meeting was held at the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights between the Deputy Commissioner for Human Rights Adam Krzywoń and the Vice-President of the Central Roma Council Karol Kwiatkowski and the Director for Communication and Cooperation at the Central Roma Council Karolina Kwiatkowska.
Representatives of the Central Roma Council presented information on the organization’s activities, its initiatives to date and actions taken to support the Roma community in Poland. During the talks, the following issues were raised, among others: issues of difficult social and living conditions in Roma settlements in Małopolska and barriers faced by Roma refugees from Ukraine. The meeting was an opportunity to exchange knowledge and experiences and discuss possible directions for further cooperation.
An old story, in the Polish town of Limanowsa, local Roma lived in a insalubrious building. So the municipality decided to purchase another building to house these Roam families. The catch: They did not buy the building in the town but in another one …
That town is a touristy one and did not appreciate this. Neither did Roma who were de-facto forced resettled.
Since no one moved in, the town of Limanowa needs to repay loans.
We are not going to cry here …
A few of the many articles on April 8th in the Polish press. The university of Warsaw claim theyt have been conducting research on Roma “migration” since 2016. There they mean migration of Roma from other countries as Poland such as Ukrainian Roma.
A special meeting dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Roma and Sinti Genocide during World War II will be held in the Środa Library Aprill 11th. The speaker will be Lucyna Matkowska, née Ondycz, a representative of the second generation of Holocaust survivors from Środa. She will share moving memories of her family, reflections on the memory and legacy of this tragedy, and the challenges facing future generations.
The “Gypsy” camp in Łódź was the first ghetto intended exclusively for Roma and Sinti in occupied Polish lands. In the Łódź ghetto, it was located on Wojska Polskiego, Obrońców Westerplatte, Starosikawska and Głowackiego (in today’s street names). in November 1941 almost five thousand Roma and Sinti from Burgenland (the Austro-Hungarian border) were imprisoned.
A guided tour is organised on April 10th at 18:00.
There is a Roma settlement on Lechicka Street in Poland, a real ghetto. Fires often occur there, mostly due to the accumulated garbage. The Poznań City Office has been demanding that it be cleaned up for several years. As reported by Radio Poznań, city officials went to inspect. Apparently, the owner of the land, who is staying in the United States, has already been fined 4 times, amounting to several dozen thousand złoty. It seems that enforcing the clean-up is difficult.
Another one of those articles, but this time in Poland. A Roma “Palace” in Wrocław, Poland.
A new memorial for 77 Roma who were murdered in Karczew, Poland, in 1943 is planned. During the interwar period, travelling Roma would come to the village of Przewóz (now part of Karczew) for wintering and rented rooms from local farmers. From 1939, Roma lived in the village, as the Germans banned them from travelling. The life of the local Roma community ended tragically on January 2, 1943. Several German soldiers surrounded the village and began to drag Roma out of their homes onto the streets. Anyone who resisted was immediately shot; a total of 77 people were killed during the executions.
A new museum is being done in Treblinka, at long last.
25,000 Roma fled from Ukraine to Poland according to this article, which also states that “Most families were completely illiterate”… Both statements are definitively wrong. There are more Roma refugees, and many are well integrated.
Now four journalists and reporters have published a book describing their plight. “The War of Our Times” by Maria Kądzielska-Koper, Arleta Bojke, Michał Owerczuk and Tomasz Piechal is a collection of ten stories.
Fr. Stanisław Opocki, the National Roma Chaplain, prayed on March 6 for the Gypsy artist, Honorary Citizen of Gorzów Wielkopolski Edward Dębicki on his 90th birthday. The Jubilarian and his wife Ewa also participated in the Holy Mass celebrated in the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Edward Dębicki, a Roma activist is well known in Poland and beyond.
A fire in a Roma neighbourhood in Poznan, Poland, sent plumes of smoke through the city. Apparently, this was a fire in a garbage dump. The articles say that this often occurs, de-facto blaming Roma.
A commemoration was held on February 26th in Auschwitz on the 82nd anniversary of the first Roma transport to the camp.
Roma bands have become an almost permanent fixture on crowded weekends in Zakopane. Eight guitars, one case and a resonance box – these are the losses of Roma bands that have been performing on Krupówki for months. The municipal guard is fighting them. And as you can see during this year’s holidays – with success. There are much fewer performances.
In 1996, UNESCO developed the Atlas of Endangered Languages, which included as many as nine languages from our country. These include Kashubian, Lower Saxon, Belarusian, Polesian, Romanes, Rusyn, Slovinian, Yiddish, Wymysorys. The fight to preserve the last of them, which is already used by a small group of older residents of Wilamowice near Bielsko-Biała, is still ongoing.
Many Polish Roma have left the country and now live in the UK.
Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar has been slowly replacing judges nominated by the previous government against the law. Most notable case, is the one of the President of the District Court in Bielsko-Biała Adam Kanafka. He became famous for issuing a ruling in which he repeated racist stereotypes towards Roma.
Another meeting with poetry took place on Sunday afternoon at the Adam Mickiewicz Theatre. The main theme of the weekend meeting with poetry were two important figures in literature and broadly understood culture – Jerzy Fickowski, a Polish poet, essayist, author of song lyrics, prose writer, translator and Papusza, (Bronisława Wajss) a Romni Polish poet, writing in the Romanes.
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