Daily Archives: November 12, 2022

Ukraine: Interview with a Soldier

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My name is Panchenko Oleksii Mykhailovych. I lived all my life in the Zaporizhia region, in the city of Kamianka-Dniprovska. I have lived in my parents’ house all my life. I am married and have two children: the first daughter Angela, then the boy David and the youngest Tatyanochka. Before the war, I was a truck driver, worked at the wheel for six years, often visited abroad.

I found out about the beginning of the war right away… because right next to us there were Russian troops, about 6 km from my house. From February 24 to April 8, there was no way I could leave the city to take my family to a safe place. Periodically there was heavy shelling, and sometimes we were not allowed out of the city at all. At one point, my wife and I packed our things and our children and decided to try to leave at our own peril and risk. This time we succeeded. We arrived on the Ukrainian controlled territory.

On the morning of April 15, I came to the Military Commissariat, whose employees were all very shocked “that a Roma is eager to serve.” I passed the medical examination in three days, I haven’t told my wife anything on this topic yet. Only on April 20 did my wife find out that I was already in the military.

Slovenia: Roma “Issues”

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The working group for dealing with the Roma issue (which is supported by the mayors of the municipalities of southern Slovenia) held its first meeting yesterday. The group will strive for a comprehensive approach of the state in solving the complex Roma problem, ensuring decent living conditions and active inclusion of Roma in social life, the government announced.

What is so complex in discrimination, racism, and the resulting exclusion? It is not a Roma “Issue” it is a gadže issue.

Slovenia: Roma Victims

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As noted by the member of the committee for the excavation and solemn burial of Roma killed during the war, Dr. Miran Komac from the Institute for Ethnic Issues, the Roma minority in Sloveniantry experienced the murder of around 70% of the entire population  during the Second World War – committed both by the occupying side and by partisan units.

Recognising that even partisans killed Roma is an important step. Miran Komac lobbied for the burial of Roma victims in Ljubljana, but Ljubljana’s mayor Zoran Janković persistently rejects this request. It is to be noted that other victims of World War Two got a space in the Ljubljana’s cemetery. So this is definitively racially motivated …

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