Category Archives: News Western Europe

Allemagne Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

German’s Financial Administration and the Holocaust

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In January 2023, a research and exhibition project called “Robbed before deportation. People persecuted by the Nazis in the focus of the Hamburg financial administration” will be started. The Hamburg tax authority is funding it with 203,000. The Hamburg Memorials and Learning Centers Foundation to commemorate the victims of Nazi crimes will research the role played by the Hamburg tax authorities in the disenfranchisement, exploitation and deportation of Sintize and Sinti, Romnja and Roma Jews. The results will be made available to the public in the form of a traveling exhibition, which will be on view in Hamburg City Hall and in the Leo Lippmann Hall in the tax authority in 2025.

Grèce Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

Thessaloniki: Restaurant

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The first restaurant with Romani cuisine will open in the centre of Thessaloniki in February! Its name will be Amalin and is the culmination of years of effort by the Roma Women’s Association of Dendropotamos.

Amalin will be the 1st Non-Profit Romano Restaurant in the city, in which women from the settlement of Dendropotamos will cook and serve. “It was a lifelong dream for us. The Association has been fighting for 20 years for inclusion and the promotion of good practices. What could be better, then, than to highlight the traditional Romani cuisine” said the head of the effort, President of the Dendropotamos Roma Women’s Association, Giannoula Magga, speaking on TV100’s Check in events show.

Allemagne Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

Germany and the Holocaust of the Roma

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The “forgotten Holocaust” – that’s what Zoni Weisz, who was the first Sinto to speak before the Bundestag on January 27, 2011, called the genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe. His speech and the inauguration of the memorial for the murdered in 2012 stand for the late recognition of this story by the Federal Republic. But German society had not simply forgotten the Nazi genocide. She deliberately refused to recognize the minority that had lived in Germany for centuries.

A new book by Sebastian Lotto-Kusche: called “The genocide of the Sinti and Roma and the Federal Republic. The long road to recognition.”  (De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin 2022. 264 pages) analyses this denial.

France Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

French Chronicle …

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Literally no news this week on Roma in France. One article, about tiny houses and a social project aiming at mixing people from camps with regular residents in Lille mentions the Roma and states that the French insertion villages are an integration failure as they keep the Roma among themselves. Other than that, a fire in a camp near Paris.

Allemagne Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

Amaro Filmo

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The movie “Amaro Filmos” (Sic.), a documentary in which young Roma from Berlin give an insight into their lives. Racism, antiziganism, gentrification and the associated displacement of an entire community are highlighted – because many of the protagonists lived in the so-called “block” at the Ostbahnhof until the end of 2022, when the last families had to move out.

Allemagne Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

Integration Councils and Racism

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Individual members of the Nuremberg Integration Council have been criticized for racist statements. Integration councilor Mitra Sharifi explains why such bodies are not free of racism – and what needs to be done about it. Racism against Sinti and Roma is quite prevalent.

Allemagne Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

Holocaust Remembrance Day

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On the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma invites you to a reading with music and singing. The opera and operetta singer Mirano Cavaljeti-Richter will present his recently published memoirs on January 28 together with the historian Annette Leo. In addition, the 89-year-old will perform some pieces with musical accompaniment.

Allemagne Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

Movie

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The movie “Injustice and Resistance” about Romani Rose and the Sinti and Roma civil right movement will be shown in London in the Goethe Institute on January 27th.

Allemagne Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

Germany and Hate Mails

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A man in Berlin has been sentenced to ten months in prison for sending hate mail containing racist abuse of Sinti and Roma. The district court in Tiergarten found the 56-year-old guilty of incitement to hatred and insult, the Berlin public prosecutor announced on Tuesday. He also had to pay 4,000 euros to the “HateAid” advice center for those affected by digital violence. According to the public prosecutor’s office, the sentence, which was suspended on probation, included an earlier fine for insult, incitement to hatred and the use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations.

In the current case, the 56-year-old sent e-mails to the Central Council of Sinti and Roma seven times between October 2020 and July 2021.

Good!

Allemagne Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

Germany: Documentary

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The members of the Schwarz family sit on the couch or camping chairs and talk about the past and present of antiziganism. Many of her grandparents were deported under the Nazis. While the contemporary witnesses have already died or have not returned from the camps, the traumatic experiences live on in the stories and return in antiziganism insults and violence in German schoolyards.

France Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

French Chronicle …

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Still not much in the French press about Roma this last week. An initiative to play with Roma children in the North of France. Nice idea, but frankly, what does it bring? Also in the North, a camp got closed in Lille. Near Paris, in Bobigny, another camp was closed. Finally, near Nice in the South, a new camp was opened. This is the same game since nearly 20 years: Close a camp, the camp pops up somewhere else.

Allemagne Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest Ukraine

Germany and Ukrainian Refugees

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A rochade among refugees in Germany. A group of Ukrainian refugees was moved away from their current home to make space for Hungarian speaking Roma refugees from Transcarpathian Ukraine who were in a temporary camp. The original refugees will be put in better homes, apparently, rather than in that particular large home they were in.

A bit of a mess, and the Germans admit their communication was not optimal.

Italie Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

Turin: Coming Out

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A theatre play on coming out.

The show was born from the idea of five Roma boys and girls in search of their history and identity. Five young people who met during a memorial trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau on the occasion of the day of commemoration of the Roma genocide, on August 2, 2022. This trip allowed five young Roma to discover a chapter of history that they hadn’t been taught in school. Visiting the places where part of their families were exterminated forced them to confront the past and question their own identity as young Roma in Italy today.

Back from Poland, the Roma decided to tell their common story and to intertwine the narrative with some personal stories of today’s Roma. The show aims to keep alive the memory of the tens of thousands of men, women and children who were exterminated and were unable to make their voices heard.

At the same time, the protagonists recount the difficulties of coming out ethnically, that is, of “coming out” and declaring one’s ethnic belonging. Although Roma rationally know that they are not guilty of anything, it is difficult for them to be able to get rid of that sense of guilt that comes from growing up in an oppressive context in which one is considered “thieves”, “dirty”, “inferior”. In the Romani community, the majority of people hide their origins and make themselves invisible. This for fear of falling into a discriminatory limbo that denies the right to housing, health, work and education.

France Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

French Chronicle …

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Almost no news in France about Roma. A reportage in the Šutka, deemed to be the “capital” of the Roma – a reportage that was already shown on Swiss TV some time back (we reported). Other news is just a fire in a squat in Grenoble.

Allemagne Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

Germany, Roma, and Education

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When Sinti and Roma are mentioned in school lessons, it is mostly as victims of the genocide, according to the sociologist Patočková. She calls for a rethink. The Conference of Ministers of Education decided in December to want to teach the history and current situation of the Sinti and Roma in lessons in the future. She negotiated the recommendations and signed them as a representative of the Alliance for Solidarity with the Sinti and Roma of Europe.

Veronika Patočková hopes are: I hope that the situation in the education system will improve – both for the children and young people from the Sinti and Roma communities and for everyone else. More than half a million Roma and Sinti live in Germany. In education, however, they rarely occur. That needs to change. We hope that the decision is a first step in this direction.

Autriche Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

EU Dream Road in Austria

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The EU project “Dream Road” dealt with strategies to improve the living conditions of the Roma in Europe. Austria, represented by the Roma adult education center in Burgenland, dealt, among other things, with the inclusion of Roma in politics. A great success is the commitment for a central memorial for the Roma Holocaust in Vienna.

Allemagne Nouvelles d'Europe de l'ouest

Philomena Franz

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Many articles in the German press and reactions from politicians to the death of the Holocaust survivor Philomena Franz.

May she rest in peace.

A selection of articles below:

Roth würdigt Auschwitz-Überlebende Philomena Franz. In: WDR. 30.12.2022. https://www1.wdr.de/kultur/kulturnachrichten/philomena-franz-sintezza-auschwitz-tod-claudia-roth-100.html

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