Category Archives: News Western Europe

Frankreich News Westeuropa

French Chronicle …

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Quite a few news and articles about Roma in France this week. It all starts with the destruction of a Roma camp in Villeron (Val d’Oise) near Paris by local residents. The town’s mayor participated in this de-facto pogrom and is now under investigation. It is sad, and it is also the reflection of a total failure of the French state. These shantytowns lodge less than 20’000 people. They have, for the most part, been in France for 20 years. And the sate failed in their integration.

The other big news is that of a French senator for the centre right stating that the deputies of the LFI (La France Insoumise – Leftist party) are transforming the National Assembly in a “Gypsy camp”. Several associations have requested he excuses himself and have complained about the systemic racism against Roma in France.

A bad week …

Frankreich News Westeuropa

France and Self Justice

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An article about a town near Paris that took it up to themselves to chase Roma away from their territory.

About a hundred Roma lived in a shantytown made of wooden huts in this Villeron (Val d’Oise) where Marine Le Pen came first in the presidential election, and which has been headed since 2014 by Dominique Kudla (without label). The mayor is now singled out for having supported and accompanied the rally that led to the eviction and destruction of the slum. “The mayor’s mission is to be the guarantor of the rule of law. We totally and unambiguously disapprove of what happened,” said Prefect Philippe Court. An investigation has been opened to specify, in particular, “whether or not there has been violence against people as well as damage to property”, announces the Pontoise prosecutor’s office.

Bad.

Italien News Westeuropa

Casamonica

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Again. This story comes up every few months, even though the people involved have been in jail for years. It is a story of a mafia clan that was also a Roma family (and not the other way around). They do not do that many articles in the press on other mafiosi.

Bad.

Deutschland News Westeuropa

Germany, the Catholic Church, and Roma

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Munich Archbishop Cardinal Reinhard Marx wants to conduct a review of the historical responsibility of the Catholic Church for the persecution of the Sinti and Rom during the Nazi. Marx visited the documentation and cultural centre of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma.

The visit also dealt in particular with the role of the then Archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Michael Faulhaber (1869-1952) and his attitude towards Sinti and Roma.

Österreich News Westeuropa

Bibi Sara Kali

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The three sisters Snezana (Simonida Selimović), Tanja (Jasmin Behnawa) and Melisa (Zeynep Alan) travel to their mother’s Serbian home village and thus begin to confront their own identity. Jelena, the mother of the siblings, who could hardly be more different, went to Boljevac to celebrate Bibijako Dive (“Aunt’s Day”) and died shortly afterwards. The festival is celebrated every year on January 31st, the same day on which the play in WERK X was first performed in Vienna.

In “Bibi Sara Kali” the confrontation with the alienated Roma culture and its customs is brought to the stage in a self-deprecating, humorous and authentic way.

“It’s always wonderful to see the audience so enthusiastic. Being able to tell our stories is of course something special,” says director Simonida Selimović in an interview with KURIER. She herself was born in Serbia, but came to Vienna at the age of seven. Growing up in two cultures, I can identify with my siblings’ struggle for identity.

Österreich News Westeuropa

Austria’s Burgenland

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Austrian TV Station ORF Burgenland will start a new series on Sunday, February 12, 2023 as part of the TV folk group program “Romano Dikipe”. “In the footsteps of vanished Roma settlements” is the title of the series that investigates the situation of the Roma in Burgenland today. In each program, a different location is visited in order to talk to Burgenland Roma and Romnja about their lives, but also about the past. The reports are in Burgenland Romani, the language of the Roma in Burgenland, and have German subtitles throughout. The new series is based on the comprehensive historical work of the two Burgenland historians Herbert Brettl and Gerhard Baumgartner. The latter is also a studio guest on “Burgenland heute” on Saturday, February 11, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.

Deutschland News Westeuropa

Germany, Universities, and Roma

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For centuries, Sinti and Roma were excluded and persecuted in Germany. To this day, the fight for recognition is tough. This also includes a student association that wants to give Sinti/Roma and diversity at universities a voice.

Deutschland News Westeuropa

Roma, the Holocaust, and Compensation

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Survivors of the Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma are worse off than other groups when it comes to compensation. A commission set up by former Interior Minister Seehofer (CSU) is calling for compensation for this disadvantage. But the traffic light coalition does not want to implement it.

Griechenland News Westeuropa

Greece: Series and Stereotypes

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At the beginning of the 20th century, in Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece, more than a third of the population was Jewish. The series Le Bracelet of Fire, directed by Giorgos Gikapeppas, has been released on February 4 on the public television channel ERT and from January 25 on the Ertflix group platform and retraces for the first time the history of a family of Thessaloniki through the darkest events of the 20th century.

However … The first episode, at the 37th minute and 45th second has a “Gypsy”, called Angelis is saying:

I stole, I stole (past continuous)

But it is allowed for the Gypsies to steal.

God gave us this right.

And he “explains” that the Romans gave an order to a Gypsy to forge the 4 nails to crucify Jesus. But when the Gypsy found out it was to crucify Christ he swallowed one. From then onwards God gave the Gypsies the right to steal.

This later tale is one that Roma told in Western Europe (but not in Greece) as the reason for their continuous travels (and originally as to why they claimed to be pilgrims).

In any case, that is a bunch of stereotypes…

Frankreich News Westeuropa

French Chronicle …

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A new museum in Montreuil en Bellay will be created to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. This location was an internment camp in France for Roma.

Other news are much more usual: An association devoted to the promotion of Roma culture (well, it is a bit of a stereotyped culture) celebrates its ten years. In the North, a family is facing expulsion. In the Southeast in Grenoble, neighbours of a squat are complaining. And finally, the story of a former fort near Paris which is supposed to be turned into a centre for oncology and is literally full of garbage. Until 2021, Roma were sorting out the garbage there.

Deutschland News Westeuropa

Germany: Really???

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A Sinti centre in Elle, Germany, received a letter from the accident insurance. So far nothing really special. But the letter was addressed to the “Kindergarten in the social hotspot of Gypsy square”. Not really politically correct. No one know how this happened. And frankly, how did the letter arrive in the right place???

Deutschland News Westeuropa

New Head

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The Antiziganism research center at the University of Heidelberg has a new head: Prof. Dr. Tanja Penter. The Rector of the Ruperto Carola, Prof. Dr. Bernhard Eitel appointed the professor of Eastern European history as director at the beginning of the year. In this function she succeeds the Heidelberg contemporary historian Prof. Dr. Edgar Wolfram. The institution, which was established in 2017, investigates mechanisms of prejudice formation and practices of discrimination and persecution of Sinti and Roma in Europe from a historically comparative perspective.

Deutschland News Westeuropa

Paintings in Heidelberg

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The Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma is showing paintings by the Benedictine monk Lukas Ruegenberg until March 19. Together with numerous fellow campaigners, the 94-year-old supported families in the Roma settlement of Habeš in Slovakia. This resulted in impressive and colorful paintings. The public vernissage will take place on Wednesday, February 8th at 6 p.m.

Österreich News Westeuropa

Motion for a Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day

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Yesterday evening, the National Council unanimously passed a motion for a resolution to the government with the aim of recognizing the genocide of Roma and Sinti during National Socialism as a historical fact and establishing August 2 as a national day of remembrance for all victims of this genocide.

Deutschland News Westeuropa

German Evangelical Church and Roma

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The head of the council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Anette Kurschus, acknowledged that her church was involved in the exclusion of Sinti and Roma during the National Socialist period. Kurschus said in Berlin that the Evangelical Church took many blamable actions. The church was involved in betraying people and handing them over to be destroyed. Kurschus also announced an increased commitment against today’s discrimination of the minority.

This is a historical event. When will the other denominations follow?

Frankreich News Westeuropa

France, the Holocaust, and Roma

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A conference in Strasbourg on the Alsatian criminal police and the persecution of Sinti and Roma between 1940 and 1944.

At last one speaks about it.

Frankreich News Westeuropa

French Chronicle …

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French television presents a movie about a young Romni who studies and wants to escape an arranged marriage, which according to the television is the tradition among Roma. Not quite correct, after all stereotypes are always ok about Roma. Other news are more usual: A fire in a camp in Fresnes and residents in Thiais protesting delays of closing a camp, both near Paris. And a house that was squatted by Roma in Grenoble is destroyed.

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