Category Archives: Poland

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poland: Conflict

Published by:

A conflict is brewing between residents of the village of Koszary in the Limanowa district. Roma illegally burn cables in their housing estate to get metals from them. “The stench is so bad you can’t breathe,” say the residents of Koszary. The residents say Roma react very aggressively to all the comments against them. This is confirmed by the recent situation when the residents of the estate beat up the TVP team that was making a program about the situation in the village.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Slums in Poland

Published by:

The social housing estate at ul. Sobieskiego in Bielsko-Biała was built in the 1990s. These are five one-story blocks with tiny apartments of a very low standard, where one bathroom and a toilet are shared between several apartments. Something for something, because the rent for the apartments was very low. There are quite a few Roma there too. With such a concentration of poverty, the estate the estate has gained very bad reputation.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poland, Cemeteries, and Roma

Published by:

Roma graves are often impressive. In this way, they honour those who have departed. These are family graves, and the richer the family, the more impressive it gets.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Limanowa, Poland, and Roma

Published by:

The mayor of Limanowa, Poland, on solving the issue of a Roma settlement with funds from the state and the reactions of the people. This saga has lasted several years, and the city was repeatedly condemned by the Ombudsman.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poland: Exhibition

Published by:

An exhibition of photographs by Arkadiusz Gola about the Silesian Roma community at the Schoen Palace in Sosnowiec, close to Katowice, Poland, is opening on October 26th.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poland and Roma

Published by:

In his last address to the management of the Ministry of Interior and Administration, the Ombudsman points out that the Roma settlement in Koszary, in the Limanowa commune, is inhabited by approximately 120 people. Many of them live in buildings arbitrarily built from random materials. These buildings are in poor technical condition – they are neither insulated nor plastered.

This is not new, and this discussion has been going on for years by now.

Bad.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Infamia

Published by:

An interview with Anna Maliszewska, the director and author of the series “Infamia”. She explains how difficult it was to give an objective portrait of Roma and how she did not manage to get any of them to come to the castings. She also spoke of Dr. Joanna Talewicz, who has been working for the Roma community for years and how she helped her in shaping the series.

News Eastern Europe Poland Romania

Polish article on Romanian Roma

Published by:

The Title says it all: “They live on garbage in the largest ghetto in Europe. “A school bag and money for school were impossible wishes’” It is an article on Pata Rat, a garbage dump on the outskirts of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, which has become a home for the excluded. The country’s fifth largest city, wealthy and with numerous cultural centres, hides people who are not treated as citizens.

Good to say, but also presents Roma as exactly that: The ones who are excluded. It also furthers stereotypes.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poland, and Roma

Published by:

A long-winded story. Roma in Limanowa, Poland, were evicted from their home. They wanted to buy a house in Laskowa using funds from the so-called Roma program. The residents organized a protest and collected 300 signatures, and the commune government intends to take into account the voice of the local community and not consent to the purchase.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poland, the Holocaust, and Roma

Published by:

Alfreda ‘Nońcia’ Markowska with her daughter, Maria Majewska in Gorzów Wielkopolski, in April 2016 when she was turning 87 years old. She collected babies whose mothers had been slaughtered by Germans. She was still a teenager at that time and saved dozen of children.

News Eastern Europe Poland Ukraine

Poland and Roma Refugees

Published by:

Joanna Talewicz-Kwiatkowska, with her foundation, tried for several months to find an apartment for a family of Roma refugees from Ukraine. No chance. – I never thought I would see such a moment – says the activist with regret. And he emphasizes that the Roma are treated worse than others, even though they are also fleeing from the war.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Roma and Poland

Published by:

A meeting will focus about the situation and challenges of the Roma community in Radom and Masovia. The activities of the Central Council of the Roma in Poland will be presented.Its activities focus on the Roma minority and counteracting the exclusion of Roma on economic, social, educational and health grounds.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Exhibition in Gdansk

Published by:

“Historians are still trying to estimate the exact number of victims of the crime in Ponary, which was committed by the German occupiers together with Lithuanian auxiliary troops, the Shaulis. Estimates say at least 80,000. victims” said Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage Dr. Jarosław Sellin during the opening of the exhibition “Victims of crime in Ponary near Vilnius 1941-1944”, which took place today at Targ Węglowy in Gdańsk . The exhibition can be visited until September 29, 2023.

The victims were mostly Jewish but there were also Roma and Poles who were killed there.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Infamia

Published by:

Two more articles among a plethora of them n the new Polish Netflix series on Roma.

The series, while highlighting serious problems and challenges faced by Roma, also perpetuates many clichés. That is not so good.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Another Comment on “Infamia”

Published by:

The NEtflic series “Infamia” is not only about the Roma or Poles. It’s about someone we perceive as a “stranger”. Here in Europe, we have a built-in and fuelled fear of foreigners. I wanted to encourage viewers to, instead of being afraid, ask “others” out of our common social life, take a closer look at them, see people in them, says Anna Maliszewska, the director of the series.

News Eastern Europe Poland

What to say …

Published by:

An article about some Romane traditions, wrapped in lots of bad journalism. Yes, some of the facts such a whistling in a house are frowned upon (in this particular case, it is calling the devil), but all the thing around is just simply bad.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Netflix “Infamia”

Published by:

Is Zofia Jastrzębska, the star of the latest Netflix series in Poland palying a 17 years old Romni, herself a Romni?

The real question in this case is does it matter?

rroma.org
en_GBEN
de_DEDE fr_FRFR en_GBEN