Rosa Taikon is getting the price for her firm commitment to respect fundamental human rights. The award recognizes her five-decade long struggle for Roma culture and constitutional rights as well as appreciates her artistic work which enriches the society.

More on it: http://www.svt.se/kultur/rosa-taikon-far-palme-priset

Words seem inadequate to express the sadness we feel about Nicolae Gheorghe passing away. The Romani Elders and ERCF will do its best to serve and continue his legacy

The Statement of Christian Strohal - ODIHR Director 2003-2008:

"Nicolae has always been such an inspiration! His openness of spirit, his patience and perseverance, and his charisma has been galvanizing more than a generation throughout Europe. I was privileged to work with him at the ODIHR for several years. My sincere condolences to Nicolae's family, my regards to his community and friends.
Let me recall the statement of the US delegate, Erika Schlager, at the 2006 OSCE/ODIHR HDIM:
"Finally, the United States notes with a certain sadness that this is the last Human Dimension Implementation Meeting we will have with Nicolae Gheorghe in his capacity as the ODIHR Senior Advisor on Romani issues. There have been many positive changes in the years that Nicolae has been in Warsaw, and in the years since he first played an instrumental role in securing the OSCE’s first reference to Romani human rights in the historic 1990 Copenhagen Document. Nicolae, it has been an honor and a privilege to work with you."
I can only join in this."

Read the life story of Nicolae Gheorghe

The Inauguration of the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Murdered Under the National Socialist Regime took place on October 24, 2012 at 11.00. An International crowed formed by the families of the Roma and Sinti survivors’ families, the representatives of Roma organizations and non-Roma supporters of the important and symbolic role of the Memorial took part in the ceremony joining the a distinguished crowed of German political leadership.

Ágner Daróczi represented The Romani Elders and emphasized in the interviews she gave to different media representatives the significance of acknowledging the past for fighting the present day discrimination of Roma.

ERCF congratulated The Romani Elders for their efforts in promoting the case of the unfinished Memorial, and the artist Dani Karavan indicated that The Romani Elders were not "banging on open doors", and that he felt that the attitude of the involved parties have significantly changed due to the international attention generated by the initiative of The Romani Elders.

On the occasion of the Inauguration Memorial to the Murdered Sinti and Roma The Romani Elders advocate for the Draft Resolution for the Recognition of the Roma Holocaust/Samudaripen!

Read the DRAFT FOR A RESOLUTION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ON THE RECOGNITION OF THE ROMA  HOLOCAUST/ SAMUDARIPEN

Photo: curtesy of Matthias Reichelt: m_reichelt@arcor.de

During this symposium the relation of art and education was discussed on two levels: the institutional level (the role of art institutions and the 'educational turn' in the art field, alternative and critical pedagogical models in connection with art educational models; student movements and initiatives from the 1960s until today) and on the level of collaboration between artists and young people (interpersonal communication, matters of positioning, knowledge production and mediation, experiencing). ERCF presented The Romani Elders Initiative as an example of effective facilitative mediation, and introduced the „resolutions” the Romani Elders’ initiatives achieved.

photo by tranzit.blog.hu

The European Roma Cultural Foundation -ERCF (www.romacult.org) was informed today about the death of the artist, writer and musician, Ceija Stojka on January 28, 2013.

During the Council Meeting of The Romani Elders in Berlin on June 1st, 2012 at the Collegium Hungaricum Berlin Nicolae Gheorghe proposed, that The Romani Elders shall draft and disseminate a draft for a European Parliament Resolution on the recognition of the Roma Samudaripen/Holocaust.

Read the Draft Proposal for a European Parliament Resolution on the Recognition of the Roma Samudaripen/Holocaust.

The simplified version of this Draft Proposal was submitted by several Roma organizations and MEP Lívia Járóka to the European Parliament on August 2, 2012!

In the Draft Paper The Romani Elders propose the following recommendations (detail from the complete document):

1. On 27 January 2013 the Genocide of Roma to be commemorated across the EU member states as part of the United Nations Day of Commemoration of the Holocaust;

2. Members states should adopt national legislation for commemoration/remembrance of the Holocaust of Roma/ Samudaripen;

3. Calls on member states on the territories of which concentration camps existed to recognise and introduce in their Roma-oriented public policies actions which are meant to eliminate the treatment of Roma otherwise than as citizens in their own full rights; as moral and political responsibility;

4.Urges the member states and European Commission to take action for introducing the education of the Holocaust/Samudaripen of Roma into the campaigns for the 2013 EU Year of Active Citizenship, based on previous experience of the OSCE and Council of Europe;

5.To inaugurate the 2nd of August as the day of commemoration of the Roma Holocaust, following the initiative of Poland.  The European Parliament invites the member states and the neighbouring to establish the 2nd of August as national days of remembrance;

6. To identify and to protect the places of mass executions of Roma during the Nazi regime and its allies, to identify and protect the mass graves of Roma victims; to provide adequate financial resources for the identification and documentation of these places; to initiate and support research in archives and by collection of testimonies to identify the localities;

7. To invite the countries concerned to protect the graves of NS-persecutees whenever their graves are endangered to be removed because of local or national ending of the periods of rest (Ruhezeiten auf den Friedhöfen).  The cultural identity of successive generations of Sinti and Roma has been and still is characterized by the experience of the Holocaust left a lasting impression.  For the families the graves are particularly important as family memorials, since for the relatives murdered in the concentration and extermination camps, there are no graves;

8. To promote the dialogue and encounter between survivors of the Holocaust and young people.

9.To preserve, construct and extend memorial sites where Sinti and Roma were tortured and murdered.

10. To strengthen the involvement of Roma organizations in scientific discourses on the Holocaust, politics of memory and Holocaust-education.

Read the PROBLEM STATEMENT AND ARGUMENT FOR THE CIVIL UNITY FOR THE UNFINISHED MEMORIAL TO THE SINTI AND ROMA MURDERED UNDER THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST REGIME

Civil Initiative for the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Murdered under the National Socialist Regime

The citizen’s initiative Perspektive Berlin was established in West Berlin in 1988 in order to erect a memorial in Germany to the Jews murdered during the Holocaust. After the fall of the Wall the initiative started to be supported by the German government, and at the same time it changed its name to the Association for the Establishment of a Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. There were opinions that the memorial should also commemorate other victims of National Socialism, but the final communiqué stated that it would be dedicated to the Murdered Jews of Europe. In 1999, parallel to the Association, the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was established, with the mission to build memorials  to the other victims of the Nazi regime — homosexuals and the Roma People — as well. But the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Murdered under National Socialism has still not been built; it is an unfinished construction site in the Tiergarten next to the Reichstag and Brandenburger Tor. The memorial is supposed to be accompanied by information about the Roma and Sinti genocide and about the Nazi camps where Roma were exterminated. The construction of the memorial only began in 2008 and was quite soon stopped because of conflict between Dani Karavan, the memorial’s designer, and the Berlin authority. The unfinished memorial was closed off by a fence and effectively forgotten.

In the framework of the 7th Berlin Biennale a Civil Initiative, led by The Romani Elders[1] and coordinated by the European Roma Cultural Foundation – ERCF (www.romacult.org)[2] advocates for the completion of the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Murdered under the National Socialist Regime.

In 1992 after years of demand by the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, the German Federal Government decided upon the construction of a Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Murdered under the National Socialist Regime. Today — twenty years after the decision — it remains an abandoned building site in the middle of Berlin.

ERCF is committed to generating a wide network of Roma and non-Roma organizations and individuals throughout Europe and is collecting their signatures in order to make an effort to impose pressure on all participants — including the political sphere, the official authorities, the construction team, and the artist — for the continuation of the building process.

The Roma community aims to communicate the urgent need to finally finish the memorial in order to celebrate in dignity the inauguration together with the handful of survivors and their families.

The Civil Initiative began with the dissemination and promotion of a Call for Unity. On June 2, 2012 the Romani Elders and the representatives of the younger generation of Roma activism assembled to make their public statements in front of the memorial.

It is the main objective of the Initiative to carve the memory of the Sinti and Roma victims into the European collective memory. The Romani Elders and the Roma community will complete their mission if the disputing parties look beyond their ego-wars, recognize what is really important in this project, and agree to promptly continue the building process until the memorial site is open to the public. We believe it is essential to commemorate the Sinti and Roma victims of the Holocaust and place them in history in order to acknowledge the continuing attacks towards the Roma throughout Europe today.