Germany has resumed the deportation of rejected refugees. This is particularly controversial in the case of Moldova. Most of the people from Moldova requesting asylum in Germany are Roma, and there, they are discriminated against.
An article in the Czech press about Čeija Stojka, who survived the Holocaust, and went to write a book about it and paint.
She was a great woman.
Again, and unfortunately as usual, supporters of the AC Roma insulted a player by calling him a Gypsy. Racism among supporters is just not acceptable, but everywhere, authorities turn a blind eye. They should be fined and banned from the stadiums.
On the occasion of International Roma Day, Fidesz EP representative Lívia Járóka organized a contemporary art exhibition entitled “Time of the Gypsies” in honor of the diverse and special Roma culture and art in the EP building in Brussels.
By presenting the works of eleven Roma visual artists of Hungarian origin, the exhibition explores the unique perspectives of Roma visual art and describes its diverse style and specific traditions in its pictorial world.
Lívia Járóka is herself subject of controverses: She is firmly behind Viktor Orban, and thus in effect and in spite of her origins, supports discrimination and segregation of Roma in Hungary.
Well, unfortunately, discrimination against Sinti and Roma in Germany is on the rise again.
Some different topics this week, in addition of the usual litany of evictions and crime. An article and an exhibition in the South of France on Roma art and artists. A concert and an exhibition for April 8th in Montpellier. Then the more usual: In Marseilles, a camp was closed. In the North, a camp is threatened with closure, even though it was legally set up in 2010. In Annemasse, near Switzerland, a new squat behind the railway station. And finally, 3 dead and 5 wounded after a fatal car crash during a car chase between rival Roma gangs in Strasbourg.
Une course-poursuite filmée à l’origine de l’accident mortel au Port-du-Rhin. In: Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace. 28.03.2023. https://www.dna.fr/faits-divers-justice/2023/03/28/un-contentieux-entre-roms-roumains-a-l-origine-de-l-accident-mortel-au-port-du-rhin
A comparison of the fate of Roma and Jews in the UK as viewed from an English Romni.
The number of cases of discrimination and racism against Sinti and Roma in Germany has never been so high. This is really bad.
Another article that reinforces the usual clichés about Roma. This time about a Kalderaša family in Germany.
Who are the Roma? Well, definitively not what this newspaper writes. This is a concentrated collection of stereotypes that do not apply to the overwhelming majority of Roma.
They say: Many travel, formerly in carriages, now in cars and caravans, in search of work. They live and dress traditionally, the women for example in colourful, long skirts.
A new radio documentary presents the life of 4 young Romnja in Ireland.
The Andalusian Gitanos Sociocultural Centre, in collaboration with the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Granada, is organising a Workshop on Health and the Gitanos Community. It aim is to make the students of the Faculty aware of the values of the Gitanos culture, the socio-sanitary situation and the idiosyncrasies of this group.
The contents of the Workshop will deal with:
– History and cultural values of Gitanos.
– Current situation of the Roma community.
– Experiences of Roma men and women in the health field.
The so-called “Hungarian” Roma have lived in France since the end of the 19th century. From the article, it is not clear from which group they are, but they are most probably Lovara.
By classifying them as “gens du voyage” as soon as they continue to circulate in caravans, the administration obliges them to live in “reception areas” often located near polluted industrial areas. Through a caravan ethnography, the anthropologist Lise Foisneau describes their attachment to places, the invisible traumas of the Second World War, the transmission of memory. But also the police and administrative hunt, and the search for places to stop. Despite the persecutions of the 20th century and the increasing privatization of public space, these companies have been constantly reconfiguring their worlds for 150 years. Lise Foisneau’s book Kumpania: living and resisting in gadjo country describes its flesh and vivacity.
More news this week in France about Roma. The Abbé Pierre Foundation and the Romeurope National Human Rights Collective lodged a complaint with the public prosecutor following the eviction of a shantytown occupied by Roma in Villeron (Val-d’Oise), on February 5, 2023. It is in addition to the five others already submitted by three members of the Roma community, the association La Voix des Rroms and the Mrap.
In Lyon, around 20 Roma were expulsed. In Aix, a fire broke out in a Roma camp. In Marseilles, another camp is threatened with closure. And finally, three Romnja are arrested in Western France for having stolen elderly people.
The city of Munich decides to realize a work of art that gives the history and present of the Sinti and Roma a voice in the city centre and brings the culture of remembrance to life. With a large majority, the general assembly of the city council now voted in favour of the implementation of a permanent, participatory art project by the artist Ladislava Gažiová on the Frauenplatz. The victims of the systematic persecution and murder during the Nazi regime are remembered and the current life of the Sinti and Roma in Munich is made visible. In this way, the city also wants to counteract the discrimination that still exists.
The chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, Romani Rose, has called for more civil courage against racism. “We are experiencing again that people in the crisis are looking for scapegoats,” Rose explained on Monday at the start of the International Weeks Against Racism in Schwerin. “But racism only comes into play when people watch and don’t contradict,” said Rose, referring to this year’s motto “Get involved.”
Not much going on in France: A celebration of the International Roma Day in Paris at the French National Institute of Oriental Languages, a new squat near Paris, and a burglary in a supermarket.
An impressive program in Vienna for the International Roma day and the 30th anniversary of the recognition of Roma in Austria. Podium discussion with Dieter Halwachs, Emmerich Gartner-Horvath, Erika Thurner, Mirjam Karoly, and Ursula Hemetek; Roma Tales and concert, and an after party.
Jo Clement, a lecturer at Northumbria University, recently published a poetry collection that has been nominated for the prestigious John Pollard Foundation Poetry Prize.
She also was an editor in the ERIAC published book “Wagtail: The Roma Women’s Poetry Anthology”.
When Josef Maria Schneck died, he was only 13 years old. The boy was one of the 141 Sinti who were deported from Munich to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp 80 years ago, on March 13, 1943. The city of Munich honours the victims of this genocide with a day of remembrance.
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