Another one of those typical tabloids’ “reports” on Roma in the UK. While they present real people and traditions, these kinds of articles perpetuate stereotypes.
Lots of news this week about Roma in the French press. First, a Roma collective addresses the French deputies regarding Antigypsyism. Then the more usual news in France: An expulsion in Marseilles and the consequences of upcoming closure of a large camp near Nantes in Western France.
An action in France for the recognition of the genocide of the Roma (and the participation of France in it.
Several articles in the French press about April 8th.
For National Council President Walter Rosenkranz (FPÖ), the erection of a memorial to the Roma and Sinti persecuted and murdered under National Socialism is “a long overdue step.” “I very much hope that the ongoing search for a location will soon lead to a positive outcome,” he said in his opening speech at the event marking International Roma Remembrance Day in Parliament.
Some of the events in Austria.
A series of articles about the demolition of two villas in Rome belonging to “Sinti clans”. The houses were in violation of the building code and the legal proceedings go back to 2010.
As for the “Sinti clans”, well, there are a few doubts that these are “clans” and “Sinti”.
A theatre performance about Roma in Greece, with Roma. The scenography, which, through its few elements, flouts expectations. A plastic chair, a wooden hut with a tin roof, grass and rocks, car seats, a guitar, and even a large, dilapidated billboard—which will serve as a projection screen—denote an environment that ticks all the boxes of stereotypes. Assistant director Avraam Goutzeloudis, himself Roma, introduces the setting.
An event in Marseilles to help a women organisation of Mukachevo in Transcarpathian Ukraine, who are trying to create a women’s house to better inform about contraception.
Roma and Sinti children are facing discrimination in German schools.
A Roma camp on a garbage dump was dismantled in Italy. 265 children, 200 adults were displaced. For once, it was not by force, but in collaboration with Roma who will be re-lodged under normal conditions.
The Spanish city of Denia commemorated the liberation 275 years ago of nearly 300 Romnja and children who were arrested in a raid against Roma in 1749 that took place throughout Spain, incarcerated in the local fortress and only liberated a year later.
An exhibition on the Genocide of the Roma during the Nazi Era. What is unfortunate is the use of the word “Tsigane” in its title, and in the title of the article.
A reportage in a Roma camp in Preveza, Greece. Unfortunately historically inaccurate in the Greek context, but otherwise representing the situation that exists in such camps in Greece.
Only one significant news in the French press this week, with Jean Baptiste Borsali, the mayor of the town of Le Bourget, near Paris, asking the interior minister to evacuate two camps of Roma in this town. The mayor reports “insistent and sometimes aggressive begging”, an “increase in burglaries and snatch thefts”, a “growing sense of insecurity”, an “uncontrollable proliferation of pests despite pest control efforts” and “streets and sidewalks littered with rubbish from systematic garbage rummaging”.
Following the intervention of Roma activists and the European Roma Rights Center, the Calabria region had to change the plan that envisaged the construction of segregated housing for Roma families with European money. At their instigation, the European Commission began to look into the case and the project was modified – instead of a new ghetto, Roma families are to be integrated into regular municipal housing. However, activists warn that the new version of the plan still has serious shortcomings.
The Roma organisation ARCA placed an open call for young activists, youth leaders, historians and researchers aged 18 to 35 to apply for their Summer School on Roma History entitled “Remembering Together”, which will take place in Berlin from June 10 to 15, 2025!
Quite a few articles this week in the French press about Roma. Mostly about a Roma camp near Nantes in Western France. Roma in this camp, in Carquefou have been summoned to leave. The issue, they cannot leave with their 131 caravans, as the access road is blocked. No comment.
In Nantes, in another camp, a fire started and in the same city, an organisation is worried about the living conditions in Roma camps. Still in Western France, an exhibition aims at building bridges between Roma and the local population. In Annecy, in the Alps, a camp reopened. In South of France, a German tourist geolocalised his stolen iPad in a Roma camp.
Kiba Lumberg’s novel entitled Black Butterfly (Musta perhonen)., describes the oppression of women in the patriarchal community of Finnish Roma.
“My curse and blessing is that I was born a Roma woman,” begins the story of Memesa Grönlund, the main character of the novel. It tells the story of a girl growing up in the Kale Roma community in the city of Lappeenranta in eastern Finland. Memesa describes life in their patriarchal community, the relationships between her and the rest of her family, but also the bullying she encounters at home and at school.
Kateřina Čapková currently works at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, where she researches the various political strategies towards Roma and Romnja during the Nazi era. In the future, Austria will also increasingly be a focus of her work. Her goal: to finally make historical findings accessible to the general public.
Čapková is a Czech historian and university professor specializing in the history of Roma. Her academic career began in the 1990s at Charles University in Prague. While still a student, she worked in the Department of Jewish Studies at the Institute of Contemporary History of the Academy of Sciences.
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