The encyclopaedia of the Genocide of the Roma was launched yesterday. This press article is an interview of the project leader, Dr. Karola Fings.
Sinti and Roma have had their home in Germany for centuries – and yet they are still subjected to severe discrimination today.
In addition to six million Jews, 500,000 Sinti and Roma were murdered in Nazi-occupied Europe during the Holocaust.
It took four decades until the then German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt recognized the genocide against Sinti and Roma under international law in 1982. In 2022, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier described antigypsyism and the continued injustice against Sinti and Roma after 1945 as a “second persecution” and asked Sinti and Roma for forgiveness.
Another article on the Encyclopaedia of the Genocide of the Roma which will be formally inaugurated today.
An article about the forthcoming inauguration of the Encylopaedia of the Roma Genocide that will be released online on March 5th.
The French television channel TF1 showed the movide “A bras Ouvert”, a movie that came out in 2017 and immediately created a controversy as it displayed many racist clichés about Roma. Bad Idea, and bad movie.
Other news in France are more of the usual ones: A camp was closed near Fréjus in the south of France; another one in Angers in Western France; In Angers, they opened up a temporary insertion site; and finally a reportage in Western France on a site opened for Roma.
The facts: a 21 year old Bulgarian-German dual citizen attacked two children in Duisburg with a knife and severely wounded them. The motive is totally unclear at this stage.
The Bulgarian press speaks of a “slaughter” and says that the person is of Roma origins… The fact that the article contradicts itself (the title says the attacker is 17 and the article says he is 21) shows how serious this article is.
Bad.
A reportage on recent research on Roma and Sinti in the German region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
The usual litany, unfortunately. In Marseilles, the State has presented a plan to integrate the ca. 900 Roma who live in camps through employment. About time… In Marseilles too, the planned insertion village will not be built, and another camp will be closed. Finally, two young Romnja are in court near Paris for having aggressed the wife of a policeman (not very smart from them).
The usual. In Marseilles, a proposed so-called “Insertion village” project, a place where Roma can settle in and integrate, has been abandoned under pressure from the neighbours. Bad. In Bordeaux, a Roma camp was vacated the day before its official expulsion. Near Paris, Roma returned in a camp following a large fire.
A reportage on the vanished Roma settlements of the Austrian Burgenland.
A mayor in France made racist comments about Roma on a WhatsApp group, and 2 years later, they surfaced. He pleads that he was simply “clumsy”. A bit easy to try to get away from these comments. Near Paris, a town was condemned for having refused to enroll Roma children in schools. That is good. In February 2023, the residents from a town near Paris expulsed Roma from a camp. A formal complaint was lodged, but French Justice, in those cases seems reluctant to do anything. Near Marseilles, the installation of an “insertion village” provokes protests from residents. Finally, Roma who fled their cam following a fire have returned.
Spyros Bakas is 24 years old, he grew up and lives in Dendropotamos (a neighbourhood of Thessaloniki) and for the last two years he has been studying Journalism, while working at a Creative Employment Center there. Spyros is the first journalist in Thessaloniki who openly declares that he is Roma, or rather Gypsy.
Many Roma in Greece as in other countries simply do not say they are Roma, simply to avoid being confronted with racist stereotypes. He chose to out himself, bravo!
The Berlinale Festival invited 2 AfD politicians to the opening on February 15th. They justify this invitation by saying that all parties are invited and have a contingent.
Yes, but not all parties advocate throwing out foreigners and non-German aliens out of the country either. And this can easily encompass Roma and Sinti, as well as Jews…
More news this week in France. A series of reportages, purportedly representing the “true” way of life of Roma, while actually extrapolating the views of a small minority to a large majority who have nothing to do with these presentations. Otherwise, the usual …
Few news on Roma. An article about Roma travellers in the South of France; the fate of Roma who where expelled near Lyon; a police operation in a Roma camp near Nantes in Western France; and the condemnation of a man who robbed a shop armed with a pitchfork.
“The “Pro Sinti & Roma” contact point is intended to make it easier for people who live here, regardless of their origin and religion, to have access to society. The project is intended to be a door opener for people who are somewhere between their country of origin and their country of immigration.
The exhibition “Racial Diagnosis: Gypsies” commemorates the systematic persecution and extermination of Sinti and Roma during the Nazi era. It was opened by the President of the North Rhein Westfalen State Parliament, André Kuper, and the first chairman of the State Association of German Sinti and Roma NRW, Roman Franz.
Christian Pfeil (80) from Trier, Germany will speak at the United Nations on Friday, January 26th, on the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day. He was born in a concentration camp and many members of his family were murdered in Auschwitz. Christian Pfeil has been committed to coming to terms with history for years. With his speech at the UN he wants to draw attention to the increasing anti-Semitism and the situation of the Sinti and Roma in the Balkan states.
79 years after the Holocaust and Genocide, the German Catholic Church indicated they want wants to deal with its failure in the Genocide of the Sinti and Roma.
Better late than never …
Two features in the French TV that actually reinforce stereotypes. One documentary about Roma who lie in the shantytown, and a feature film on a young woman who refuses to marry the family’s candidate. And of course always the French fact that Roma are the foreigners.
An exhibition on the expulsion of Roma in Montreuil is being shown in the South West by Emmaüs, an exhibition that had been refused in another place earlier.
The rest of the news is more usual: A fire in a caravan near Angers, and two burglaries, one with a ram car and another one with pitchforks.
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