Daily Archives: November 11, 2022

Deutschland News Westeuropa

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.”

News Osteuropa Slowenien

Slovenia and Discrimination

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Discrimination of the Roma community is still present in Slovenia according to  Jerica Lorenci, the researcher of the Epeka association who presented the report of the project Promoting Roma Equality in Slovenia and Slovakia. She also drew attention to the lack of statistical data related to the Roma community.

Since there are no reports of discrimination, their level is higher than that perceived by the Defender of the Principle of Equality, she stated. Every one of the 50 people who were interviewed as part of the research had experienced discrimination, Lorencijeva told STA on the side-lines of the presentation, which took place in the premises of the Ljubljana Faculty of Social Sciences.

News Osteuropa Slowakei

Slovakia and Discrimination

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A week ago, the Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Government of the Slovak Republic for Roma communities published the results of the most comprehensive research on the life of Roma in recent years.

According to the study, the direct experience of Roma with discrimination is decreasing. Twenty-one percent of Roma said they had experienced some form of discrimination because of their skin colour or ethnicity in the past year. In a similar survey from 2016, it was 30 percent of Roma.

Reality is somewhat different:

As a Roma, social worker Tomáš Ščuka encountered discrimination all his life, most often in restaurants and bars, but also at the doctor’s office or in offices. “Now that I’m older, it’s less, but you can still see the signs. For example, in a restaurant they make me wait longer, or they serve me later than the person who came after me. That is such latent discrimination,” he says.

Discrimination against Roma is apparently gradually changing its form and becoming more hidden somewhere, but it still hasn’t disappeared. Ščuka compares it to the Kotlebo people in the parliament, who gave up open racism years ago, but still send racist signals to their voters when they talk, for example, about maladaptive fellow citizens.

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