News

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.

After the significant experience in Poland (trip, visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, sharing of experiences with other peers), TRACER young leaders continued their action research, producing:

- some written reflections about the journey in Poland and the visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau;

- some photos and short videos of travel, journey, visits, workshops, and share moments.

On this date we commemorate the victims of Porrajmos, the extermination of Roma and Sinti during World War II. The date was chosen to commemorate the night of 2nd August 1944 in which more than 4,000 people - men, women, children and elderly people - were murdered in the Zigeunerlager of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

In 2015, the European Parliament declared 2nd August European Day of Remembrance of the Nazi Extermination of Roma and Sinti to remember the 500,000 European Roma murdered in Nazi-occupied Europe.

In these months the groups of young leaders continued the research, reflecting and re-elaborating the historical contents collected in relation to the Holocaust and the history of Roma people.

Their work produced:

From 14th to 18th May some of the young leaders of the TRACER project will meet in Poland to get to know each other, share their local activities, and visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

The international group of young people from Portugal, Italy and Poland will also participate on 17th May in the international seminar "Crossing Auschwitz. A journey of memory through art and objects between past and present" that will be hosted by the Italian Cultural Institute in Krakow.

"Crossing Auschwitz. A journey of memory through art and objects between past and present" is the title of the international seminar that will be held in Krakow on 17th May at 5.30 pm.

The event attended by representatives of all project partners is hosted by the Italian Cultural Institute in Krakow and is open to the participation of interested audience (teachers, university students, stakeholders, etc.).

In Italy, Portugal and Poland, the work of the young leaders continued during these months.

Young people are carrying out research and documentation activities on the themes of the holocaust and the history of the Roma people.

In doing so, each group also conducted interviews with some significant witnesses and experts including:

The 6 local groups of young people who will work within TRACER project have been set up. They will collect documentation on the history of the Roma and Sinti people, narratives about the Holocaust and the Roma genocide (Porrajmos) to discover what connects Roma communities to each other and to Europe.

Reclaiming a sense of history through the memory of Porrajmos so that policies directed towards discrimination are no longer possible: this is the theme that connects Tracer project groups' actions in the different territories.

Below the links to the news

Are now available the video and other materials of the conference "Art and Culture for Narrative and Inclusion. Presentation of the European project Trasformative Roma Art and Culture for European Remembrance".

Link to the video recording  https://youtu.be/FaEMQtSpHgM