Author Archives: Roma Foundation

Deutschland News Westeuropa

Ursula Heilig

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Ursula Heilig, born Hartmann, died at the age of 85. She was born on February 28, 1937, in Frankenstein into a Silesian Sinti family. Her family ran a circus company. From 1940 to 1945, as a small child, she lived in hiding in Upper Silesia with her mother Auguste Sperlich and other relatives under inhumane conditions. She suffered severe damage to her health as a result of escaping and living in hiding. Large parts of her relatives were murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

May she rest in peace.

Tschechische Republik News Osteuropa

Czech Republic: Resignation

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Monika Šimůnková, the Czech Deputy Public Defender of Rights, has resigned. She has said she cannot continue to work with Public Defender of Rights Stanislav Křeček who has made several statements that can only be qualified as racist.

Tschechische Republik News Osteuropa

Roma Politics in the Czech Republic

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A Romano politician in the Czech Republic is compiling a list of Roma whom he deems to be traitors. He is mostly referring to Roma who collaborate with extreme rightist parties. In any case, this create quite an echo on social media.

Tschechische Republik News Osteuropa

Czech Prime Minister on Holocaust

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The sad fate of the Roma from Bohemia and Moravia remains not only a tragic, but also a lesser-known chapter of our history. The Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala (Civil Democrats) said on Thursday at the memorial for the Genocide of Roma and Sinti in Hodonín near Kunštát in Moravia. The 79th anniversary of the transport of 749 Roma to the Auschwitz concentration camp was commemorated there. On the territory of today’s Czech Republic there were two concentration camps for Roma – in Hodonín near Kunštát and in Lety near Písek. Fiala emphasized: “If we want to learn a lesson from history, it is necessary not only to know tragic events as sentences in textbooks, but also to be able to connect them to specific places and the fate of people.”

Tschechische Republik News Osteuropa

Czech Republic, Holocaust and Politics

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The Czech Prime Minister will be attending a ceremony honouring the Roma victims of the Holocaust  at the Hodonin un Kunštatu Memorial on August 18th.

News Westeuropa Spanien

Spain, Attacks, and Roma

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The Spanish Gitana Society and the Federation of Gitana Women have filed a complaint against the mayor of Íllora (Granada), Antonio Salazar, for alleged incitement to hatred after the violent death of a 19-year-old boy at the town festivals. The incitement concerns acts by citizen who have detained a 23-year-old Gitano, and for the damage to Roma homes the municipality of Poniente de Granada.

Specifically, the Federation of Gitana Women considers the alderman “promoter and instigator” of the assaults registered in the town against several Gitana families and has even requested his arrest.

According to the Spanish Gitana Society, these are “serious crimes”, which “have been generated against Gitana families”, for which they ask that the mayor be “immediately arrested”.

These attacks are becoming more frequent is Spain.

News Osteuropa Ukraine

Ukraine Roma

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An article in Spanish on the situation of Roma in the Ukraine. It is based on the visit of the Sinto MEP Romeo Franz in the Ukraine. “The situation of Roma in Ukraine is unbearable, I couldn’t believe that Roma live in such conditions in Europe,” said German Roma MEP Romeo Franz, one of the participants in the delegation that visited Ukraine, at a press conference. It is possible that soe of the Roma IDPs will suffer hunger this winter in the Ukraine.

Italien News Americas News Westeuropa

International Romnja Congress

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The University of Southern Patagonia of Argentina – UNPA which has been involved for years in spreading the Romani culture and above all it deals with the condition of women Romani women is organising an International Congress of Romani Women from the 17th to the 19th of August.

In addition to Argentina, Romani women from Brazil, the USA, Spain, Romania, Ukraine, Italy will attend. For Italy, Giulia Di Rocco has been called for the second time to take part and will talk about the situation of Romani women between discrimination and struggles for gender equality.

News Osteuropa Serbien

Serbia and Roma

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In a town near Leskovac, Serbia, Roma mostly speak Serbian, and they have a humorous explanation for that in a video.

This is to be contracted to the general situation in Serbia where, according to a UNESCO report, almost 60 percent of Roma children in the Balkans do not attend secondary school, and many do not know any other language than Romanes.

Tschechische Republik News Osteuropa

Stereotypes

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An article about a Roma wedding in the Czech town of Jirkov highlights the views of the majority on Roma and some of the stereotype: “A wedding that you don’t usually see. Romani brides and grooms Patrícia and Radek from the Czech town of Jirkov in the Chomutov district did not leave the preparation for the most beautiful day of their lives to chance and pulled out all the stops. Their wedding was exactly as it should be for Roma – luxurious and quite noisy!”

No comments.

Tschechische Republik News Osteuropa

Roma Bašavel

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On August 18th,  the Roma Bašavel event will take place in Prague. Tickets are no longer available, but the event can be watched via live broadcast on social networks “Romany Bashavel 2022”. The live broadcast is provided by ROMEA TV.

News Osteuropa Slowenien

Slovenian Pilgrimage

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Roma have been participating in this pilgrimage in Brezje, Slovenia for a century. Usually set a week before Mary’s Assumption day, during the festivities, they help carry the image of Mary from the church to a nearby park and back to church, a trip symbolizing the search for an abode that Mary and Josef had to do.

After two years where the feast was cancelled because of Corona, it takes place again. But the local authorities do not want to provide a place where the Roma could stay during the pilgrimage, in fact, preventing them from attending. This is bad, but in view of the general view of Roma in Slovenia, not surprising.

Griechenland News Westeuropa

Interview with Paul Hagouel

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Dr. Paul Isaac Hagouel, president of the Roma Genocide Committee at the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) spoke to APE-MPE on the occasion of the Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day on August 2nd. Himself the son of an Auschwitz survivor, explained that “the oblivion of the Roma and Sinti Genocide perpetuated prejudices and stereotypes about the Roma which, in turn, fostered discrimination and unfounded and at the same time harmful hatred of the ‘other’ – Anti-Gypsyism”.

Thus, the IHRA, a transnational organization, constituted by a combination of experts and top diplomats from the member states, recommended the creation of the Commission on the Genocide of the Roma in 2007. This interdisciplinary IHRA Committee aims to raise awareness of prejudice against Roma and Sinti and highlight the link between the history of persecution and the current situation in Roma communities which, continue to experience the manifestations of stereotypes, prejudices and, quite often, (racial) hatred.

News Osteuropa News Westeuropa Spanien Ukraine

Spain and Ukraine

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An editorial by Juan de Dios Ramirez Heredia, a lawyer, former EU MP, and a Rom activist on the unbearable situation of Roma in the Ukraine. He states: “It is dramatic to know that the situation of the Roma people in Ukraine is unbearable and that the war has greatly increased their exclusion. Conditions in the settlements are unacceptable and Roma are being discriminated against during aid distribution in the context of war.”

News Westeuropa Spanien

Spain and Racism

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The little Catalan town of la Seu d’Urgell was the scene of racist incident between a group of local residents who wanted to dance a Sardana on a square and a group of Roma evangelical Christians. The municipality apparently had made an error and scheduled both events on the same square on the same day. The result was that Roma were insulted and confronted with racist shouts and were asked to leave.

The municipality excused itself and deplored the racist overtones of its residents.

Frankreich News Westeuropa

French Chronicle …

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After a week without news on Roma in France, they are back in the news. An interview and overview of the travels of a French Gitan in Europe to preserve the memory of those who were killed during the Holocaust. A book and a movie will apparently follow. Other than that, a major fire started in Nantes, in Western France,  in the vicinity of a Roma camp. Apparently, several caravans were burnt, and the Roma were evacuated. Finally, a new camp in the South East will be closed, as it is situated in a forest that could easily burn.

Bulgarien News Osteuropa

Sofia Wedding

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A huge wedding gathered the eyes of passers-by on the capital’s Vitosha Boulevard this afternoon. About hundred wedding guests sang and danced to the sounds of an orchestra in the centre of Sofia. Foreign tourists were apparently amazed and took photographs of the celebration. Strolling residents of the capital spontaneously join the party, and so the guests, although uninvited, became hundreds.

Apparently dozens of calls to the police were made and the noise of the celebration echoed throughout the centre, but the police never responded or intervened.

Deutschland News Westeuropa

Fact Check

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A video has been circulating on social media since July 31. It is shared with the claim: “150 extended Roma families from Ukraine are given apartments in Sömmerda, Thuringia and the shops have been informed not to call the police for every crime.”

Well, nothing is true here. The only truth is that this is racist propaganda.

Deutschland News Westeuropa

Roma Literature

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Their literature is almost unknown: Only in 2019 for the first time were Sinti and Roma represented with their own stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time. A look at literary alternatives to a world of intolerance and ignorance. This give a nice overview of Roma literature.

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