The aims of this 1-year project are to strengthen the knowledge and capacity of Roma and non-Roma young people and their organizations and to exchange their practices related to the remembrance and education about the Roma Holocaust.
Moreover, the project aims to combat antigypsyism and antigypsyist narratives and to advocate to include the Roma history in school curricula and teaching materials in all V4 countries because Roma are an integral part of both national and European societies.
This project runs between November 2021 and December 2022 and funded by the Visegrad Fund: https://www.visegradfund.org/ .
The project includes the following timeline and activities:
01/11/2021 – 31/03/2022 Online preparation for partners
13/05/2022 – 18/05/2022 – Seminar about Romani Resistance in Auschwitz, Poland
31/07/2022 – 05/08/2022 – Seminar about the Roma Holocaust in Buchenwald, Germany
11/11/2022 – 13/11/2022 Strenghtening youth and public knowledge about the Roma Holocaust in Budapest, Hungary
We believe, by educating young people about the Roma Holucaust their and their wider communities’ awareness about the dangers of extremist ideologies and hate crimes will be increased. The seminar in Auschwitz and an online campaign run by participants afterwards, will raise awareness on the Romani resistance during World War II and will provide positive narratives about Roma history, and about the active role that Roma play/played in anti-Nazi, anti-Fascist resistance movements and today. By this, we actively shift the narrative from the Roma as victims to active actors with agency and responsibility in shaping the future.
The seminar in Buchenwald will discover how different forms of testimonies can be used for having discussions about the Holocaust with young people. We chose this site, because Éva Fahidi, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor was a prisoner of this camp between August, 1944 and the end of the war. We hope she can accompany us in person there and can talk to the participants about her memories.
The conference in November 2022 will bring together a wider audience of Roma and non-Roma stakeholders in the youth, human rights and education fields and will discuss and promote the important role of history in the inclusion and participation of (young) Roma people in the V4 countries and beyond.
The partners are:
RGDTS-Phiren Amenca (HUN); Ternipe – association for Roma youth in Slovakia and Hungary (SK); Art Foundation “Jaw Dikh” (PL); Roma Future z.s. (CZ)