The exhibition “Last Seen” of photographs of Holocaust victims just before they were sent to their death opened in Düsseldorf, Germany.
The International Centre for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust organised a meeting devoted to the extermination of the Roma for the inhabitants of Oświęcim and its vicinity. It will be held on November 4.
The Centre announced that the meeting is part of the “Around the History of Auschwitz” series. Classes have been conducted since May this year.
Germany’s Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier honoured the memorial for Sinti and Roma in Berlin on its tenth anniversary. The President criticized ongoing discrimination against Roma in Germany and Europe. According to Steinmeier in Berlin, the old anti-Roma prejudices persisted in many parts of society. They could be revived all over Europe by radical right-wing forces. “The everyday discrimination against Roma and Romnja must stop,” he said.
The ten years old Holocaust Memorial for Sinti and Roma in Berlin is threatened by the construction of a new subway right underneath it. Associations of Sinti and Roma see the function of the memorial where fresh flowers are always placed on the stele, and where there is a violin sound threatened by planned construction work for a new S-Bahn line. The chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, Romani Rose, has indicated that he is willing to discuss a modified draft.
Today marks the tenth anniversary of the Holocaust memorial of Sinti and Roma in Berlin. The German President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier will hold a speech there at 11 AM.
The Holocaust survivor Zilli Schmidt, a German Sintiza, died in Manheim, Germany at the age of 98.
May she rest in peace.
On October 20th and 21st, an international conference on the Genocide of the Roma and on Combatting Antigypsyism was held in Stockholm. The conference was both in person as well as online with over 100 participants online and ca. 50 in person. There were Roma representatives from Sweden, but also other Roma from Romania, Serbia, France, and other countries as well as researchers International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) members, as well as Swedish representatives.
The conference was held under the auspices of the Swedish presidency of the IHRA for 2022.
There was a very strong consensus among Roma who were present on the terminology: They clearly preferred the name of Roma Holocaust over the one of Genocide, having the feeling that using the latter belittles their sufferings during the period. An interesting intervention by Andrej Kotljarchuk from the Uppsala University explained that “Holocaust” has a subjective value while “Genocide” is extremely well defined. So maybe we should speak about the Roma Genocide during the Holocaust.
Hardly anyone knows the stories of the Roma who were persecuted by the National Socialists in Ukraine. The survivors still experience discrimination – and suffer particularly from Putin’s war.
The historian Saul Friedländer, a Holocaust researcher and the author of a bouk on the Roma Holocaust (among many others) just turned 90.
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?
The story of the German boxing champion Johann Rukeli Trollmann, who as a Sinto was then deported to a concentration camp, and eventually killed.
The martyrdom of the Roma, marginalized by the Yugoslav and Croatian authorities after the Second World War, saw the near-complete annihilation of the Roma community in Croatia. Since 2002, remembrance efforts have been made so that their status as full-fledged genocide victims is recognized, but their story has yet to be truly included in school textbooks. A look back with historian Danijel Vojak on this marginalized history.
An 83 years old Rom from the Ukraine, who survived World War Two, has now been forced to flee his country due to the Russian invasion.
“The truth about the Holocaust is and will remain a shocking warning against disregarding chauvinism and imperialism in any form,” stressed President Andrzej Duda in a letter read during the celebration of the 78th anniversary of the liquidation of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto and the 80th anniversary of the so-called Wielka Szpera.
There were also Roma in the Ghetto.
A movie on the archaeological work which allowed to reconstruct the events in the extermination camp of Sobibor in Poland. The camp was destroyed by the Germans in 1943 to cover up for their crimes.
Many of the artefacts discovered during the archaeological work are now on display at the Sobibor museum.
German and Ukrainian Sinti and Roma of different generations spoke about the Holocaust and the Russian aggression war at the virtual commemoration of the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma.
The movie “How I Became a Partisan” directed by Vera Lacková will be broadcast by RTVS on the occasion of the 78th anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising. The film will remind viewers that Roma also joined the uprising. For years, speaking about Nazi persecutions of the Roma minority was taboo. Concentration camps, houses burnt down, murder of families… Communists did not want to have Roma heroes or victims of Nazism. History has forgotten them. “It’s as if we Roma don’t count. At the same time, Roma culture influences and enriches the cultures of the countries where Roma live. A good example is Spain and flamenco dance. Hardly anyone knows that it comes from the Roma,” said the author of the film, Vera Lacková.
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.
The Czech Prime Minister will be attending a ceremony honouring the Roma victims of the Holocaust at the Hodonin un Kunštatu Memorial on August 18th.
Dr. Paul Isaac Hagouel, president of the Roma Genocide Committee at the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) spoke to APE-MPE on the occasion of the Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day on August 2nd. Himself the son of an Auschwitz survivor, explained that “the oblivion of the Roma and Sinti Genocide perpetuated prejudices and stereotypes about the Roma which, in turn, fostered discrimination and unfounded and at the same time harmful hatred of the ‘other’ – Anti-Gypsyism”.
Thus, the IHRA, a transnational organization, constituted by a combination of experts and top diplomats from the member states, recommended the creation of the Commission on the Genocide of the Roma in 2007. This interdisciplinary IHRA Committee aims to raise awareness of prejudice against Roma and Sinti and highlight the link between the history of persecution and the current situation in Roma communities which, continue to experience the manifestations of stereotypes, prejudices and, quite often, (racial) hatred.
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