Category Archives: News Western Europe

Italy News Western Europe

Turin: Coming Out

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A theatre play on coming out.

The show was born from the idea of five Roma boys and girls in search of their history and identity. Five young people who met during a memorial trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau on the occasion of the day of commemoration of the Roma genocide, on August 2, 2022. This trip allowed five young Roma to discover a chapter of history that they hadn’t been taught in school. Visiting the places where part of their families were exterminated forced them to confront the past and question their own identity as young Roma in Italy today.

Back from Poland, the Roma decided to tell their common story and to intertwine the narrative with some personal stories of today’s Roma. The show aims to keep alive the memory of the tens of thousands of men, women and children who were exterminated and were unable to make their voices heard.

At the same time, the protagonists recount the difficulties of coming out ethnically, that is, of “coming out” and declaring one’s ethnic belonging. Although Roma rationally know that they are not guilty of anything, it is difficult for them to be able to get rid of that sense of guilt that comes from growing up in an oppressive context in which one is considered “thieves”, “dirty”, “inferior”. In the Romani community, the majority of people hide their origins and make themselves invisible. This for fear of falling into a discriminatory limbo that denies the right to housing, health, work and education.

France News Western Europe

French Chronicle …

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Almost no news in France about Roma. A reportage in the Šutka, deemed to be the “capital” of the Roma – a reportage that was already shown on Swiss TV some time back (we reported). Other news is just a fire in a squat in Grenoble.

Germany News Western Europe

Germany, Roma, and Education

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When Sinti and Roma are mentioned in school lessons, it is mostly as victims of the genocide, according to the sociologist Patočková. She calls for a rethink. The Conference of Ministers of Education decided in December to want to teach the history and current situation of the Sinti and Roma in lessons in the future. She negotiated the recommendations and signed them as a representative of the Alliance for Solidarity with the Sinti and Roma of Europe.

Veronika Patočková hopes are: I hope that the situation in the education system will improve – both for the children and young people from the Sinti and Roma communities and for everyone else. More than half a million Roma and Sinti live in Germany. In education, however, they rarely occur. That needs to change. We hope that the decision is a first step in this direction.

Austria News Western Europe

EU Dream Road in Austria

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The EU project “Dream Road” dealt with strategies to improve the living conditions of the Roma in Europe. Austria, represented by the Roma adult education center in Burgenland, dealt, among other things, with the inclusion of Roma in politics. A great success is the commitment for a central memorial for the Roma Holocaust in Vienna.

Germany News Western Europe

Philomena Franz

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Many articles in the German press and reactions from politicians to the death of the Holocaust survivor Philomena Franz.

May she rest in peace.

A selection of articles below:

Roth würdigt Auschwitz-Überlebende Philomena Franz. In: WDR. 30.12.2022. https://www1.wdr.de/kultur/kulturnachrichten/philomena-franz-sintezza-auschwitz-tod-claudia-roth-100.html

Greece News Western Europe

Greece: Freed – Really?

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A Greek court has decided to release from custody the police officer who shot and killed a 16-year-old Roma man in Thessaloniki on December 5 after a chase over an unpaid gas bill, Greek media reported.

The policeman has been banned from leaving the country. The court of first instance in Thessaloniki approved the proposal of the investigation to release the 34-year-old police officer, Kathimerini newspaper reports, despite the opinion of the prosecutor’s office.

France News Western Europe

French Chronicle …

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Véronique Le Goaziou, sociologist, has just published a latest book entitled “Démunis” [Destitute]. For two years, she investigated people in great precariousness in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône. Here we see one of the unfortunate trends, namely an implicit view that Roma are poor.

Other news are: In Uzès, a family is faced with expulsion. In Toulouse, the regional assembly supports the scholll inclusion od children. Also in Toulouse, on the riverbanks, a new camp is growing. In Nantes, a fire started in a camp. Finally, in the North of France, the prefect is pushing for more expulsions, something that has not been a solution for the last 20 years…

Germany News Western Europe

Gentrification in Germany

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The gentrification process hits Sinti and Roma twice as hard as other residents. Throughout Germany, they are evicted from their homes or forced to move into dilapidated houses or even construction containers.

Roksana’s family had twenty minutes to pack their things. Then they had to leave the apartment. Immediately. When the 17-year-old returned from school, her parents and six siblings were already on the street. They didn’t know where to go. The building supervision authority in Duisburg cleaned the entire apartment building. Reason: construction faults.

Germany News Western Europe

80 Years

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With the so-called Auschwitz Decree issues 80 years ago, the Nazi regime ordered the deportation of Sinti and Roma from all over Europe to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp 80 years ago. Hundreds of thousands of Sinti and Roma fell victim to the genocide.

Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth and the chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, Romani Rose, commemorated the Sinti and Roma murdered by the National Socialists at the Sachsenhausen Memorial on Thursday.

Greece News Western Europe

Greece and Roma

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A long article about the shooting of a young Rom in Thessaloniki last week, and about the recurring police violence and racism against Roma and generally minorities in Greece, this with almost impunity.

It also highlights that the Roma are there since the Byzantine Empire (true, but most of the original Greek Roma are now in Turkey due to the population exchange in the 1920, and the current Roma are mostly Vach Roma who escaped the slavery), and it highlights the dire situation in which they are.

They are badly regarded in Greece and considered by many to be criminals.

This is bad.

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.

France News Western Europe

French Chronicle …

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Not much about Roma his week in France. An interview with two Romanian Roma who live in a camp near Paris and their hops of finding work and having a proper lodging. Another article about the “white van”, or how a story about Roma stealing children took hold of France a few years back. Roma fighting back the expulsion from their camp in Bobigny, and another demand of closure in Saint Denis. Finally, Roma an criminality, here near Toulouse and about prostitution.

Greece News Western Europe

Greece: How not to Report

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A news article with an inciendary headline “Roma burned businesses, raided cafes and beat citizens

Western Attica is a battlefield” following the manifestations after the shooting of a young Rom in Thessaloniki. Yes, there were riots, shops got ransacked, but this was definitively not all Roma.

Bad journalism, unfortunately with a goal, namely to portray Roma as violent, dangerous and criminal.

Greece News Western Europe

Greece and Roma

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Roma leaders in Greece have appealed to calm following riots in major cities in Greece following the shooting of a young Roma in Thessaloniki. At least 10 police officers were injured during the riots in Athens with protester also commemorating another fatal shooting by the police in 2008.

Greece News Western Europe

More on the Thessaloniki Shooting

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There were manifestations in Athens, Thessaloniki, and other Greek cities following the shooting of Kostas Frangoulis, a 16-year-old Roma in Thessaloniki. He was severely wounded by the Police after allegedly failing to pay a €20 (£17) fuel bill at a petrol station. These manifestations took place on the eve of the commemoration of another shooting of another teenager killed on Decembe 6th, 2008 by an officer in Athens’ Exarchia district. Last year, another young Rom Nikos Sampanis was fatally shot in a car chase near Athens. There is a clear pattern of violence here.

The protesters shouted slogans such as “Stop the murderous police”.

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