Category Archives: Germany

20 September 1407

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This date is considered to be the first written account of the arrival of Roma in German lands. However, here are some accounts from Alsace and Switzerland somewhat earlier. It is also incorrect to use the plural of “Volk” in this context. That they always continue to show Roma as travellers is also annoying.

On German Trains

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The Deutsche Reichsbahn took an active part in the crimes of the National Socialists in the “Third Reich”. Around three million people were deported to ghettos, concentration and extermination camps on their trains. Without the logistics and resources of the Reichsbahn, the Holocaust would not have been possible. How does Deutsche Bahn deal with the historical heritage today?

Johann Rukeli Trollmann

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The story of the German boxing champion Johann Rukeli Trollmann, who as a Sinto was then deported to a concentration camp, and eventually killed.

Romno Power

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The RomnoPower culture week 2022 starts on September 17th. Every year, the Association of German Sinti and Roma, of the Baden-Württemberg State, presents the diverse contribution of Sinti and Roma to European culture in close proximity to the anniversary of the first documentary mention of Sinti and Roma on German territory on September 20, 1407. For the opening ceremony of the RomnoPower culture week 2022 on September 17th, the internationally renowned street dancer Mr. Quick (David Kwiek) and his crew of kids and teens will perform a dance theatre performance that they will develop and produce as part of the VDSR-BW summer camp to have.

Frankfurt: Movie and Discussion

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The Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ) and the German Institute for Human Rights (DIMR) invite to a film screening and discussion about the fight for civil rights on September 5, 8 p.m., in the German Film Institute & Film Museum in Frankfurt am Main a.

Racist discrimination has always been part of the everyday experience of the Sinti and Roma in Germany. Discrimination manifests itself in different facets: from unlawful special registrations by the police to disadvantages on the housing market to verbal hostility and physical assaults.

Rostock – Commemorations

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Commemorations of the 1992 pogrom in the East German city of Rostock have taken place on Thursday.

“Many don’t want to talk about it anymore, don’t want any more events, just want to forget,” says Stephanie Nelles, Rostock’s integration officer. This opinion is widespread in the city, including in the migrant community. “But there are also many, especially younger people, who don’t want to forget that.” They were never properly informed about the 1992 pogrom in Lichtenhagen and are now asking the parents’ generation, the contemporary witnesses, to talk about it. With this, Nelles outlines the division of remembrance in Rostock’s urban society. The integration officer positions herself clearly: “You can only change if you remember.”

Rostock, 30 years ago

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Thirty years ago, a massive racist pogrom took place in Rostock Lichtenhagen. It was mostly directed at Vietnamese immigrants but also touched a few Roma.

It highlighted the existent of violent racism in Germany, something that has unfortunately continued. Other lessons, such as how the police should intervene have been learnt.

Germany: Testimony

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Romeo Tiberiade, a contemporary witness of the anti-foreigner pogrom in Rostock  in 1992 speaks for the first time. Tiberiade came to Germany with his family from Romania in 1992. In conversation with his daughter, Izabela Tiberiade, he reports on the flight to Germany, the pogrom and his family’s life after the pogrom.

Romeo Tiberiade is chairman of the Roma party “Pro Europa” in Dolj and adviser to the Mayor of Craiova on Roma issues. He lives with his family in Craiova.

Izabela Tiberiade is a law graduate from Malmö University and active in the Europe-wide network “Dikh He Na Bister” in memory of the Porajmos. She lives in Malmo.

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.

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.

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.

Roma Holocaust Remembrance: German Press

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Some extracts of the numerous articles in the German Press on the August 2nd commemorations and on the speech of Bodo Ramelow, the president of the German Parliament in Auschwitz.

Roma and Sinti in the German Democratic Republic

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After the war, around 600 Sinti lived in the GDR. While they continued to be discriminated against in the West even after the Holocaust, in the socialist state they should have had equal rights as citizens. But that was only partially true. In the GDR, little was known about this minority. Sinti from the GDR have only recently begun to speak publicly about their history.

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