Category Archives: Germany

Germany News Western Europe

Germany, Education, and Roma

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The German Conference of Ministers of Education, together with the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma and the Alliance for Solidarity with the Sinti and Roma of Europe, has passed a joint declaration on teaching the past and present of Sinti and Roma in schools.

With this declaration, the three participants want to work towards schools intensifying their involvement with the past and present of the Sinti and Roma in the classroom and in extracurricular activities. In a special way, as in teacher training, awareness of the topic of antigypsyism should be raised.

Europe Germany News Western Europe

Roma in Europe

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On German Television, Andreas Bönte talks with his guests about how Sinti and Roma live in Europe today, how prejudices can be broken down and how fairer coexistence can be shaped in the future. Among the prominent ones: Romani Rose, Dotschy Rienhardt, Mehmet Daimagüler.

They said it: The largest transnational minority in Europe.

BUT: Again, they speak of 600 years in Europe, forgetting that Bulgaria, Thrakia, Constantinople, and all the Balkan and Carpaths were and are also part of Europe and that Roma arrived there earlier. When will this stop.

Germany Moldova News Western Europe

Germany, Moldova, and Refugees

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There is an ongoing controversy in Berlin currently where the Senate wants to send 600 Moldovan refugees back to Moldova before Christmas to make room for Ukrainian refugees. Some of those 600 are Roma so this is not good.

Germany News Eastern Europe News Western Europe Poland

Romani Rose and Auschwitz Council

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Romani Rose, the chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma is a new member of the International Auschwitz Council. The Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki appointed him to the committee. The Council advises the Polish government on all matters relating to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial. Other members include Yad Vashem Chairman Dayan and World Jewish Congress President Lauder. Rose warned that nationalists and right-wing extremists in many European countries were trying to deny and relativize the crimes of the Holocaust against six million Jews and 500,000 Sinti and Roma. Every form of Holocaust denial and falsification of history must be opposed. Education programs specifically for young people at historical sites of persecution and extermination are important “to counteract anti-Semitism, anti-Gypsyism and racism in our societies,” Rose explained.

Germany News Western Europe

Germany and Roma

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Germany Antitziganism representative Mehmet Daimagüler, asks for the creation of a “truth commission” to deal with the persecution of Sinti and Roma during and after the Nazis. He explains why “reconciliation” lags why memorial events are a lie and why the minority cannot feel safe.

Germany News Western Europe

Don Vasyl

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Don Vasyl, one of the best known Roma musicians in Poland, is being accused of plagiarism by two Polish artists who claim he stole some of their music and works. The conflict is apparently not new, dating back 16 years (!). One of the pieces is the song Dželem Dželem where Don Vasyl is accused of having used the Polish words written by the artists. A first court ruling dismissed the case, but the lawyers of the Polish artists decided to appeal this decision.

Germany News Western Europe

Flight …

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The flight escape of a Sinti family from the Holocaust will be the focus of a book presentation on November 28 in the Neubrandenburg regional library. The opera and operetta singer Mirano Cavaljeti-Richter wrote the book together with the historian Annette Leo. It’s called “Fleeing across the Balkans. The childhood experiences of a Sinto boy during the Nazi era” and was published by Metropol-Verlag in Berlin.

The 89-year-old Cavaljeti-Richter grew up in a traditional extended family of comedians who used caravans to perform their variety programs in small towns and villages in the 1930s. In 1939 the family fled Germany via Italy, Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria. The singer was six years old at the time and describes how the family gradually lost everything but were able to save their lives.

Germany News Western Europe

Germany: Condemned

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The district court of Neumünster sentenced the operator of a fitness studio to a one thousand Euros fine and thus agreed with Kelly Laubinger, a Sintica from Neumünster. She had suspected that she was denied membership of the fitness studio because of her last name – Laubinger which is a name that many Sinti bear. She hopes that her recent court victory will encourage others to take action against inequality.

Germany News Western Europe

The Press and Roma

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The German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung – short FAZ – was forced to remove a picture on one of its articles after critique from the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma.

In FAZ’ November 1st issue, a photo showing a mountain of rubbish on Gutleutstrasse in Frankfurt am Main was used to illustrate the report “Fighting environmental crime more effectively”. In the caption, the focus was set on the Roma minority, although this had no relation to the text next to it. Romani Rose, the chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma commented: “Here a global crime is highligheted and the selection of images conveys that the Roma minority is involved in these environmental crimes through street garbage.” On Tuesday, the FAZ exchanged the picture for a photograph of EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius. Below the text, the addition was added: “This article appeared at times with an image that was not appropriate to the topic. We changed the illustration.”

This highlights how choices of pictures in articles in the press convey and further existing stereotypes regarding Roma.

Germany News Western Europe

Sachsenhausen: Exhibition

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Adolescents and younger adults from different countries, among them descendants of former prisoners, dealt with the history of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and with the question of how it can be remembered today and how the victims can be commemorated in artistic workshops. The results can be seen from Saturday.

The focus of the artistic interventions are the perspectives of the participants on today’s memorial and the question of which stories are missing. For example, the commemoration of Sinti and Roma, the memory of Spanish prisoners or also of female prisoners who had to work as forced prostitutes are discussed. The exhibition is interactive. Each work of art poses a question to the viewer and invites them to make their own statement.

Germany News Western Europe

Hamburg Commemoration

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The Hamburg Parliament and the Hamburg Senate commemorated the victims of war, Nazi tyranny and terrorism around the world on  the day of national mourning. The President of the Hamburg Parliament, Carola Veit, and Hamburg’s Deputy Mayor, Katharina Fegebank, laid wreaths at the international memorial of the Neuengamme concentration camp memorial site and at the memorial site “Denk.mal Hannoverscher Bahnhof”. A central hour of remembrance then took place in the main church of St. Michaelis.

Germany News Western Europe

Sinto Settlement in Kiel, Germany

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A reportage in the Sinto Settlement “Maro Temm” in Kiel. Well, with some stereotypes from the journalists too. Large families, feasts, etc.

Germany News Western Europe

Germany: Documentary

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The movie “Injustice and Resistance” (Germany/Austria 2022, 113 minutes) by Peter Nestler received the 3sat Documentary Film Award, endowed with 6000 euros, for the best German-language documentary at the 46th Duisburg Film Week.

In Peter Nestler’s film, civil rights activist Romani Rose talks about his family history and his experiences. As early as 1970 Nestler shot “Att vara zigenare” (“To be a gypsy”) for Swedish television. Back then it was the first film that didn’t talk about the minority, but rather let the people themselves have their say. 52 years later, Nestler shows how stubbornly prejudices and enemy stereotypes have persisted.

Germany News Western Europe

Germany and Germans

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For the last few weeks, the NDR has been touring the north of Germany with the series “The North Reads”. The series has made a stop at the Kultur Palast in Hamburg-Billstedt and was practically a guest – at the ARD theme week “We wanted! What holds us together?”. Bestselling author Ildiko von Kürthy and the two authors Daniel Schreiber and Gianni Jovanovic described what they mean by “we”.

As a Rom, Gianni Jovanovic has already thought a lot about what this “we” means, which is talked about so much. Of course he sees himself as a German, he says, despite the crimes committed under National Socialism on Sinti and Roma:

“It’s true that we have one country. Half a million people were exterminated. Nevertheless, we feel that we belong to this country,” says Jovanovic. “I have a problem with the word Heimat, but Germany is my home and my safe haven. I’ve noticed that a lot of Sinti and Roma don’t say they are Sinti and Roma because they’re afraid of being discriminated against – and that is a big problem.”

Germany News Western Europe

Germany and Extremism

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A new study in Germany, the Leipziger Sudie zürich Extremismus shows improvement since the last one tow years ago. However, racism isn’t sill a problem, against Jews, Moslems, and of course Roma. In Eastern Germany, more than 50% of respondent would have a problem if Roma would move into their neighbourhood, while in the Western part of the country, it is still around 30%.

Bad.

Germany News Western Europe

Germany: Brawl

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In a mass brawl in a parking lot in Düsseldorf, a man drove his car into a group of people and injured several people. Five men were so badly injured in the incident early Saturday morning that they had to be taken to hospital for treatment, police and prosecutors said. After outpatient treatment, the men were released.

Witnesses estimated that up to 50 to 60 participants took part in the brawl, as reported by the “Neue Ruhr Zeitung”, citing a police spokeswoman. The participants apparently came from the Sinti and Roma milieu.

Germany News Western Europe

Racism in Germany?

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In early summer 2021, Kelly Laubinger wanted to join a gym in her hometown of Neumünster, but she didn’t get a place. Because she is Sintica, she believes – and is now suing the studio for violating the Equal Treatment Act. It was only because of Corona, claims the operator of the fitness studio. But in court he got caught up in contradictions. Case is still open.

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