News

"Leaving a trace: Roma and non-Roma young people between memory and present" is the title of the International Conference that will be held in Braga on 20th September 2024.

The morning session will be completed with the presentation of the book "Leaving a trace. Action-research with young Roma and non-Roma people between history, memory and present", realised by the Tracer team on the basis of the outcomes of the European Project.

Once the different activities (artistic and didactic workshops, training, public events...) were completed, all groups produced short video clips aimed at peers to promote the project and its objectives more widely.

The development of the project led local groups to involve several classes of students aged 12 to 16 in a didactic workshop on the genocide of the Roma and Sinti people during World War II.

During the workshop (10 hours for each class), the different local groups designed participative and interactive ways to involve and engage students, using videos and direct testimonies, interviews with members of the Roma and Sinti community, as well as the young leaders' narration of their trip and experience in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

From January to June 2024, the young people involved in Tracer project activities showed the artistic products realized during the workshops at several public events.

Tracer's recent activities have also involved teachers and school staff in Poland (Oswiecim), Portugal (Braga and Figueira Da Foz) and Italy (Bologna, Florence, Naples).

Each local group composed of young leaders and the representatives of partners organizations, carried out a 10-hour face-to-face training in which different topics were addressed: the history of the Roma people and the Porrajmos, the deconstruction of stereotypes, the shared construction of paths to combat prejudice in the present.

In these months in Italy (Modena, Firenze e Napoli), Poland (Oswiecim) and Portugal (Braga and Figueira da Foz) artistic workshop took place.

In the course of the activities young people learned specific artistic techniques that helped them to realize in their countries and cities an artistic product (graffiti, booklet on the history of Roma people, theatre, short animated film…) with an antidiscrimination message useful to preserve the memory of the holocaust of Sinti and Roma minorities in Europe.

In many European countries, at least one in two harbors feelings of hatred towards Sinti and Roma (Pew Research Center, 2019).

Antigypsyism is the most widespread form of racism towards these communities and feeds on stereotypes and prejudices built over the centuries and strengthened during Nazism and fascism. Hatred still affects Roma and Sinti who live in the present, although their history has always been deeply connected with the history of Europe. Knowing their history means showing their contribution to the construction of European cultural heritage.

The International Day of Remembrance is coming up soon. Tracer youth groups will be engaged in different cities in telling the history of Roma people and of the Porrajmos using the tools of creativity and art.

Below and attached are the different appointments and meetings:

• January 13 in Modena: unveiling of the "DRUGA STRONA" mural

https://opengroup.eu/news/un-murales-per-raccontare-il-porrajmos/

During these months, the groups of young leaders reflected on how to tell the story of the Roma communities to other young peers, students and teenagers.

In doing so, they used the materials they had previously collected through action-research on Holocaust and the knowledge they acquired during their journey to Poland and the visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

The conference proposes a reflection starting from the experience of young Roma and non-Roma who undertook a journey to Auschwitz-Birkenau and participated to a collective training process promoted by the European project TRACER.

The conference “Roma and Sinti youth encounter the Porrajmos” is in the programme of the International History Festival and will be held at the Department of Educational Sciences of the University of Bologna on 23th October at 3.30 pm.