Solidarity with the
Sinti and Roma of Europe

Antiziganism

Ágnes

Ágnes Daróczi, born in Berettyóújfalu/Hungary in 1954, has been fighting for Roma rights ever since she was 17. As a journalist and scientific researcher of minority issues, she fights for the equality of Roma in Hungary and in Europe. She initiated the first Roma art exhibition and publishes on the persecution and murder of Hungarian Roma during the Second World War. When we met her at the Roma Holocaust Memorial in Budapest, Ágnes Daróczi talked about antiziganism in Hungary, the disregard for European values and her hopes for the next generation.

Prizrenis

The brothers Prizreni are sons of a Roma family who came to Germany at the end of the 80s from Kosovo. Hikmet was born in Priština in 1981, Kefaet in 1984 in Prizren. Selami was born in 1989 in Essen. Together, they launched a career as hip hop artists. However, shortly before the contract for their first album could be sealed, Kefaet and Selami were deported to Kosovo. There, they experienced massive discrimination as Roma and lived in deep poverty for five years. After the time in which they were not allowed to re-enter Germany expired they came back home, to Essen. Shortly afterwards Hikmet was arrested - he was to be deported, too. All three of them live with the status »tolerated«, their residential permit has to be renewed every month. We filmed Kefaet and Selami at the concert organised for the release of their brother.

Gianni

Gianni Jovanovic was born in Germany into a family of refugees in 1972. He is a father, a grandfather, a husband, an entrepreneur, and an activist. His early life is characterized by discrimination and the fear of deportation. At the age of 14, he was forced by his parents to marry a Romni, and with 16 he became a father. A few years later he outed himself as gay. He has lived together with his husband for over ten years now. His initiative »Queer Roma« is aimed at the »minority inside the minority«: lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people in the Roma community. We visited him at his home in Cologne to talk about his experiences with discrimination as a gay Rom and about his attitudes in life.

Janko

Janko Lauenberger was born into a Berlin musical dynasty in 1976. He enjoyed an early musical education, one of his teachers was the guitar virtuoso Ferenc Snétberger. Janko Lauenberger plays lead guitar in the band Sinti Swing Berlin and performs with other musicians too. We visited him at his home in Berlin. He talks about the daily terror in the schoolyard, how he defended himself and how he lost his faith in the GDR. According to him, the only medicine against Antiziganism is education.

Jozef

Jozef Miker was born in the Eastern Slovakian town of Sobrance in 1965. Looking for better work opportunities, his family moved to the West Bohemian border region in what was then Czechoslovakia. He completed a training as a mechanic and worked in the mining industry until 2011 when he was forced to quit due to health problems. Josef Miker has been an activist against racism and right wing extremism for over twenty years. In 2012, he founded the Konexe organisation. Together with him we visited the premises of the former concentration camp Lety. Since 1971 there has been a pig farm there. Josef feels an obligation to campaign against this unworthy use and to fight for a decent commemoration to honour the Roma who were killed in the camp – including members of his family.

Mano

Mano Höllenreiner was born in 1924 and grew up in Bavaria. In 1943, the Höllenreiner family was deported to the camp for Sinti and Roma in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. We visited him at his home in Mettenheim. Mano Höllenreiner talks about his time as a prisoner in the camp and the resistance of the Sinti against the SS. According to Höllenreiner, a good education is the key to improve the situation of Sinti and Roma.

Mariana

Mariana Roman was born in Romania in 1990. She moved to Berlin with her husband and her two children two years ago. We met her in Berlin’s Intercultural Theatre Centre. She talks about the exclusion she experienced as a Romni in school and about the poverty of her childhood. Mariana Roman came to Germany because she hoped for a better future for her children. The beginning was difficult. As a Romni, she wasn’t welcome here either. But gradually, her life has changed.

Niza

Nizaqete Bislimi, born in 1979 in Lipjan/Kosovo, fled to Germany in 1993. Having only the residence status »tolerated«, she was on the verge of being deported for years. It was only in 2006, after she passed her state exam in law, that her residence status was settled. As a lawyer specializing in German law on aliens she now represents clients from all over the world, including Roma. We visited her at her office in Essen. Nizaqete Bislimi explains how antiziganism manifests itself, why she became a lawyer and what the legal situation that has been made much stricter since 2014 (»safe countries of origin«) means for her.

Who are the Sinti and Romani people?

Roma have been living in Europe for over a thousand years. Their ancestors came from India. In Romani, their language comprising a multitude of dialects, Roma means people. Sinti refers to those who have been at home in the German-speaking region for over 600 years. Currently consisting of up to 16 million people, the Roma are the largest European minority. Roma is used to refer to the members of the Sinti and Romani minority living in Eastern and South Eastern Europe. Roma are citizens of their respective home countries, speak the national language and follow the local majority religions. In their centuries of history, the Roma adopted the customs of their surrounding environment and on their part have shaped the culture and economy. Here they were particularly successful in certain occupations: in trade and crafts, music and entertainment. However, most experience hostility and discrimination in many countries, provided they identify themselves as Roma.

What is antiziganism?

Derived from antisemitism (hostility towards Jews), antiziganism is the technical term for hostility towards Roma. It originally comes from the word »gypsy« and literary means »against gypsies«. However, gypsy is not just any word – from 1933 to 1945 the National Socialists persecuted the Sinti and Roma as »gypsies« throughout Europe. Up to half a million people fell victim to this terror.

Antiziganism persists even today: according to studies, over 50 percent of Germans would prefer Roma and Sinti not to »stay in their area«. This stance leads to societal and state ostracism, discrimination and persecution. An everyday example could be as follows: a pub landlord refuses to serve Sinti, houses occupied by Roma are set on fire and ‘gypsy’ is a common expletive.

Antiziganism refers to a collection of centuries-old thought patterns that are spread throughout Europe. These thought patterns persist detached from personal experiences with Roma or Sinti. Those affected have no means of breaking down these stereotypes. Roma are the victims of targeted violence in quite a number of countries.

Memorial to the Sinti and Roma of Europe Murdered under the National Socialist Regime

The Memorial to the Sinti and Roma of Europe Murdered under the National Socialist Regime is a remembrance to up to half a million people who were killed as »gypsies« between 1939 and 1945. It was not until 1982 that the former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt (1918 – 2015) officially acknowledged these crimes against Sinti and Roma as genocide. The fact that there is this national memorial today is primarily thanks to the commitment of members of the minority themselves – in particular their Central Council. They had few supporters in society and politics. In 1992, the Federal Government expressed the intention for creating a memorial for the murdered Sinti and Roma. In 2001 the Central Council submitted the signatures of 1,630 survivors to the Federal Government. They requested the swift implementation of the memorial. Construction began seven years later in 2008. On 24th October 2012 – 30 years after the first official recognition of the genocide of Sinti and Roma and over 20 years after the first initiative – it could finally be handed over to the public. Since then, it has been managed by the Foundation Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe.