Germany News Western Europe

The Press and Roma

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The German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung – short FAZ – was forced to remove a picture on one of its articles after critique from the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma.

In FAZ’ November 1st issue, a photo showing a mountain of rubbish on Gutleutstrasse in Frankfurt am Main was used to illustrate the report “Fighting environmental crime more effectively”. In the caption, the focus was set on the Roma minority, although this had no relation to the text next to it. Romani Rose, the chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma commented: “Here a global crime is highligheted and the selection of images conveys that the Roma minority is involved in these environmental crimes through street garbage.” On Tuesday, the FAZ exchanged the picture for a photograph of EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius. Below the text, the addition was added: “This article appeared at times with an image that was not appropriate to the topic. We changed the illustration.”

This highlights how choices of pictures in articles in the press convey and further existing stereotypes regarding Roma.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czech Republic and Sterilisations

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Some comments to the recent judgement denying a Romni compensation for forced sterilisations even though the medical record indicates that the reason was she was Romani. The Czech Human Right Commissioner reacts.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czech Republic and Discrimination

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An interview with dental hygienist Daniela Patkaňová. For years she has been working as a dental hygienist in one of the facilities in Prague. It originally comes from Svidňik, Slovakia. Her journey to the dentist’s office was far from straightforward. She started in the field of sales, went to the Czech Republic for work and later also to Great Britain. It was there that she completed her education and started as a dental nurse. Although she encountered rejection in the areas of housing and employment because of her Roma status, she did not give in. What was decisive for her was the meeting with associate professor Mariá Bartoňová, with whom she still works.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Ljubljana’s Mayor and Racism

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Zoran Janković, the current mayor of Ljubljana, Slovenia, is trying to be re-elected for the fifth time in a row and also to get a majority in the city council to govern. He is however involved in a controversy about the burial of Roma from Ižan, victims of the Nazis and of the Partisans in Ljubljana’s cemetery. He is opposing the burial and has now been officially accused of racism by the Assembly for the Republic who published a harsh statement: By not burying the Roma from Ižan, he showed a level of racism hitherto unknown in Ljubljana, that he despises the sanctity of life by abusing cemeteries, that he incited intolerance and hatred with his political appearances.

Germany News Western Europe

Sachsenhausen: Exhibition

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Adolescents and younger adults from different countries, among them descendants of former prisoners, dealt with the history of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and with the question of how it can be remembered today and how the victims can be commemorated in artistic workshops. The results can be seen from Saturday.

The focus of the artistic interventions are the perspectives of the participants on today’s memorial and the question of which stories are missing. For example, the commemoration of Sinti and Roma, the memory of Spanish prisoners or also of female prisoners who had to work as forced prostitutes are discussed. The exhibition is interactive. Each work of art poses a question to the viewer and invites them to make their own statement.

News Eastern Europe Ukraine

Ukraine and Roma

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An article in the German press on Roma in the Ukraine. As usual, the focus lies on Transcarpathia and, together with Bessarabia, represent an exception regarding to the situation of Roma in the Ukraine. In those two regions, the situation is really bad, with ghettoes and unemployment. But in places where the majority of Roma are Xaladytka and Servi, the situation is very different.

This is almost never presented in the press.

Lithuania News Eastern Europe Poland

Kwik Family

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An article in the Polish press about the Lithuanian Roma group “Sare Roma”. The group is led by the Kwik family, Lithuanian Lovara and was founded 70 years ago by the grandfather of Isztwan Kwik.

Germany News Western Europe

Hamburg Commemoration

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The Hamburg Parliament and the Hamburg Senate commemorated the victims of war, Nazi tyranny and terrorism around the world on  the day of national mourning. The President of the Hamburg Parliament, Carola Veit, and Hamburg’s Deputy Mayor, Katharina Fegebank, laid wreaths at the international memorial of the Neuengamme concentration camp memorial site and at the memorial site “Denk.mal Hannoverscher Bahnhof”. A central hour of remembrance then took place in the main church of St. Michaelis.

Germany News Western Europe

Sinto Settlement in Kiel, Germany

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A reportage in the Sinto Settlement “Maro Temm” in Kiel. Well, with some stereotypes from the journalists too. Large families, feasts, etc.

News Eastern Europe Ukraine

Ukraine, Roma, and the War

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The story of several Roma from Svalyava, in Transcarpathian Ukraine who volunteered in the Ukrainian Army in the fight against Russia. The oldest among them is Mykhailo Tytychko, alias Baron. He got this nickname for his considerable authority in the Roma community. He is the only one of the volunteers who had military service experience.

Baron shares that at first the other guys in their unit were wary. A certain tension was felt. Later, Mykhailo himself found out in a conversation with his brothers that there were certain fears. They lived in constant tension and fear that something would be stolen from them – they themselves admitted to me a month later. But this mistrust passed very quickly – as soon as the boys took a good look at us, we became so close that we became like a family.

Germany News Western Europe

Germany: Documentary

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The movie “Injustice and Resistance” (Germany/Austria 2022, 113 minutes) by Peter Nestler received the 3sat Documentary Film Award, endowed with 6000 euros, for the best German-language documentary at the 46th Duisburg Film Week.

In Peter Nestler’s film, civil rights activist Romani Rose talks about his family history and his experiences. As early as 1970 Nestler shot “Att vara zigenare” (“To be a gypsy”) for Swedish television. Back then it was the first film that didn’t talk about the minority, but rather let the people themselves have their say. 52 years later, Nestler shows how stubbornly prejudices and enemy stereotypes have persisted.

Austria News Western Europe

Austria: Commemoration

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A commemoration of the Roma victims in the former concentration camp of Lackenbach was held this week.

France News Western Europe

French Chronicle …

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This week is more usual. An article about the effectiveness of the “transition village” that was set up in Montpellier, with more people finding jobs and housing, showing this is the better way to do things. In Nantes, a conference will be held on Roma and precarity. And the rest is the usual: A fire in a Roma camp near Paris; a closure of a camp in Villeurbane near Lyon and another one that neighbours would like to see closed in the same town.

News Eastern Europe Ukraine

Ukraine: Interview with a Soldier

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My name is Panchenko Oleksii Mykhailovych. I lived all my life in the Zaporizhia region, in the city of Kamianka-Dniprovska. I have lived in my parents’ house all my life. I am married and have two children: the first daughter Angela, then the boy David and the youngest Tatyanochka. Before the war, I was a truck driver, worked at the wheel for six years, often visited abroad.

I found out about the beginning of the war right away… because right next to us there were Russian troops, about 6 km from my house. From February 24 to April 8, there was no way I could leave the city to take my family to a safe place. Periodically there was heavy shelling, and sometimes we were not allowed out of the city at all. At one point, my wife and I packed our things and our children and decided to try to leave at our own peril and risk. This time we succeeded. We arrived on the Ukrainian controlled territory.

On the morning of April 15, I came to the Military Commissariat, whose employees were all very shocked “that a Roma is eager to serve.” I passed the medical examination in three days, I haven’t told my wife anything on this topic yet. Only on April 20 did my wife find out that I was already in the military.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia: Roma “Issues”

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The working group for dealing with the Roma issue (which is supported by the mayors of the municipalities of southern Slovenia) held its first meeting yesterday. The group will strive for a comprehensive approach of the state in solving the complex Roma problem, ensuring decent living conditions and active inclusion of Roma in social life, the government announced.

What is so complex in discrimination, racism, and the resulting exclusion? It is not a Roma “Issue” it is a gadže issue.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia: Roma Victims

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As noted by the member of the committee for the excavation and solemn burial of Roma killed during the war, Dr. Miran Komac from the Institute for Ethnic Issues, the Roma minority in Sloveniantry experienced the murder of around 70% of the entire population  during the Second World War – committed both by the occupying side and by partisan units.

Recognising that even partisans killed Roma is an important step. Miran Komac lobbied for the burial of Roma victims in Ljubljana, but Ljubljana’s mayor Zoran Janković persistently rejects this request. It is to be noted that other victims of World War Two got a space in the Ljubljana’s cemetery. So this is definitively racially motivated …

Germany News Western Europe

Germany and Germans

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For the last few weeks, the NDR has been touring the north of Germany with the series “The North Reads”. The series has made a stop at the Kultur Palast in Hamburg-Billstedt and was practically a guest – at the ARD theme week “We wanted! What holds us together?”. Bestselling author Ildiko von Kürthy and the two authors Daniel Schreiber and Gianni Jovanovic described what they mean by “we”.

As a Rom, Gianni Jovanovic has already thought a lot about what this “we” means, which is talked about so much. Of course he sees himself as a German, he says, despite the crimes committed under National Socialism on Sinti and Roma:

“It’s true that we have one country. Half a million people were exterminated. Nevertheless, we feel that we belong to this country,” says Jovanovic. “I have a problem with the word Heimat, but Germany is my home and my safe haven. I’ve noticed that a lot of Sinti and Roma don’t say they are Sinti and Roma because they’re afraid of being discriminated against – and that is a big problem.”

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia and Discrimination

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Discrimination of the Roma community is still present in Slovenia according to  Jerica Lorenci, the researcher of the Epeka association who presented the report of the project Promoting Roma Equality in Slovenia and Slovakia. She also drew attention to the lack of statistical data related to the Roma community.

Since there are no reports of discrimination, their level is higher than that perceived by the Defender of the Principle of Equality, she stated. Every one of the 50 people who were interviewed as part of the research had experienced discrimination, Lorencijeva told STA on the side-lines of the presentation, which took place in the premises of the Ljubljana Faculty of Social Sciences.

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