 based in international practices. The name is Against Discrimination, Memory to Stop Romaphobia, a European vision. First of all, I would like to shape a little bit the moment that we are facing now because I think it's quite a worrying trend for all of us. Discrimination and hate speech towards minorities are increasing. Also, far-right movements and authoritarian political parties are more present in our society. And this affects minorities, in this case, affects Roma population. While hate is spreading in society, Roma people are resisting discriminatory practices. For example, we can say that access to education and employee team, discriminatory practices made by the police and social exclusion. But racism is not new. Romaphobia has been present toward the whole European history. Roma people have resisted discriminatory practices, discriminatory policies, they have been persecuted and targeted. Historical memory is an essential tool for prevent discrimination and also a crucial tool for recognition and avoiding repetition. It's essential that all of us, for example, remember Samodari pen that, as was explained before, it was the genocide that happened during the Second World War to Roma people where half a million were killed by the Nazis regime. And memory show us that not only in the communities that are affected, but also the whole community, the whole societies that are affected and democratic values are feeling under mind. To address this issue, it's important that we promote initiatives and also activities that highlight the Roma contribution to the society as an historical way or an artistic way or in other ways. Memory is not just looking at the past, but it's a dynamic tool to look to the future and to try to get tools and understand what happened in the past and combat racism and romaphobia today. In order to talk a little bit more about this European vision that we are talking today, I have with me three very special people here representing three different countries in Europe. We have on the first place Leif Haggard from Finland, Chiara Nentioni from Italy, and Emyr Gerbic from Croatia. So, first of all, I will introduce Leif Haggard. He is part of the Roma Association of Finland and Roma Youth Forum in Finland. He is an activist and expert on Roma people and he won the Young European of the Year Award in 2021 and promoter of the Roma History Month in collaboration with the Peace Education Institute in Finland. Next to him, we have Anu Raila Stao Moran who is also part of the Education Institute in Finland who will help us with the translation. Leif, thank you for being here. I remember that each speaker has 20 minutes in total, so between 15, 20 minutes, so we have time for questions for the public. Thank you, Leif. Can you hear Leif now, can you speak? Now, okay, yeah. Now you don't have to eat it. Yeah, that is fine. Thank you, we're talking about very important things here today and I feel privileged to be here with you. Thank you very much. So, we are going to begin with a short introduction to the history of the Finnish Roma. The Roma arrived in Finland about 200 years ago and it was the first time in the world that the Roma were born in Finland. It was the first time in the world that the Roma were born in Finland. It was the first time in the world that the Roma were born and arrived in Finland about 500 years ago. Much like the rest of the Europe, the Finnish Roma have also faced discrimination, destruction, control, and assimilation by authorities. The execution by hanging legislation drafted in 1637 and abolished only 100 years later gives an example of the destruction faced by the Roma. And as an example of assimilation up to the 1960s, many Roma children were taken into custody and placed in orphanages where they were not allowed to preserve their culture or language in any way. Hence the Finnish Roma language is in a very weak state with only a few speakers. Up to the mid-1970s, the Finnish Roma lived a traveler life due to homelessness. Once municipalities were obligated to organize housing for the Roma, the Roma people no longer had to roam around looking for a place to stay or live in a tent in the summertime. We are young. This is the current day of the Roma and this is the current day of the Roma in terms of education. We do not have many over-educated Roma children. We are in a two-thousand-year-old situation where Roma children have had their first and basic education. In other children's education, there has been a difficult experience within the last ten years and this has now been the starting point for this situation. It was only after this that the path to education opened for the Roma. Thus one could safely say that the history of the educated Roma in Finland is quite short. This in turn is reflected in the level of education of the Roma. There are still not that many university graduates amongst us. Just now, in the 21st century, we have reached a situation where the Roma attend both preschool and primary and lower secondary schools. Upper secondary school degrees have only become a standard in the past decades and aiming at higher education is now something we work towards. This is the situation we find ourselves in now. Why is it important to discuss the history of the Roma in Finland? When Finnish history, it's taught in primary school, and then we are more concerned about the future of the Roma in Finland. If one has the same idea, then this example of the Roma is particularly relevant to the Roma. Isn't it? When Finnish history, it's taught in primary and lower secondary education. The history of the Finnish Roma is not talked about. The 500-year-old history of the Finnish Roma is indeed colorful. It has, for example, racism towards the Roma, different forms of discrimination, and several different ways of putting this racism and discrimination into practice by the state. But it has also seen the Roma and the majority population living together in harmony, despite their disagreements, facing the same challenges, and coming together to build Finland. The lack of historical knowledge has enabled different negative and racist stereotypes related to the Roma. Where they are now considered to be the truth without a shadow of a doubt. However, many negative stereotypes related to the Roma are bound to specific historical context. Being aware of this context would be essential to understanding where the prejudices and so-called facts passed on from one generation to another stem from. This awareness would also help many people recognize and question the negative attitudes and prejudices they have towards the Roma. There are still many who question the Finnishness of the Roma. In some cases this is racism, but most often it is just ignorance. The history taught in Finnish primary and lower secondary school is relatively white normative, which easily gives an impression about white Finland. Hence, the knowledge regarding Finnish racism and its history among the Finnish media and the Finnish journalists is at a low level. A constant incorrect claim given by the media in Finland is that Finland has not been multicultural in the past and that racism would be a relatively new concept in Finland. So this is not true, but it is true that there has been a lot of racism in Finland that has not been considered to be the right thing to do in the past, as many other countries have. Where did you forget when Finland was under the Swedish or the Venetian rule? Where are the old Finnish minorities, the Tatars, the Jewish, the Korean, the Germans or the Romans? Finland has always been different cultures and has spoken different languages. So this is not true at all. With my friend Baby Mayanemi, we have had a good laugh about a statement claiming that Finns do not know how to deal with racism in Finland, unlike in other countries, because Finland has not been a multicultural country for long. Well, what about the fact that Finland used to be under the Swedish and the Russian rule? What about our old minorities, the Tatars, the Jewish, the Carillians, the Sami and the Roma? Different cultures and different languages. Being on the rise and racism becoming normalized again, it is about time to stop maintaining the narrative of Finland's past and present whiteness. One tool for this is to make the Roma history more visible. Acknowledging that Finland has always been a multicultural country and being aware of the history of discrimination and oppression helps recognize the injustice and wrongdoings minorities have faced in the past. In Finland, we can see very clearly what happens when injustice is not dealt time legitimizes it. What is wrong soon becomes the norm that is repeated time after time. In Finland, we can talk about racism and react to injustice, but the injustice of the Roma is so normal that it is often criticized. For example, the Roma are trying to harm the Roma in their work. The Roma are very difficult to get to the work of those who do not need the training or further experience from the bottom. When the Roma woman gets to work with the city, it is still so difficult for us that the media does that thing. If the Roma get to work with the city, it is so difficult that it overcomes the injustice. Isn't it so significant in this regard that it would have been difficult for us to criticize the society against racism? This has not happened. We leave the new one to tomorrow. In Finland, we can talk about racism and react to discrimination, but the discrimination against the Roma has become so normal at this point that it is often just ignored. The Roma experience, for example, white-scale employment-related discrimination. It is extremely challenging for a Roma to acquire a job with no requirement for education or previous work experience. It is such an exceptional case for a Roma woman to get a job as a cashier that the media wants to cover it. If a Roma working as a cashier really breaks the news, isn't this an indicator of a major fault in our society that should act as a wake-up call regarding the racism raging in our society? Unfortunately, the story about the Roma woman working as a cashier did not receive much attention, and hence there was no great awakening. The Roma women are not as traditional as the other women. We believe that what we know about the history of the Roma women is that we recognize the role of racism, and understand the current anti-chipsism way of seeing and against the Roma women. It is not normal, and therefore it is not true. It is a history of the future that has not yet been questioned, that has not yet been divided into two. In order for Finns to face the racism and discrimination against the Roma, in the same way as we face racism and discrimination against other minorities, the history of the Roma needs to be acknowledged. Finns need to recognize the model of racialization, and understand that the anti-chipsi way of seeing and against the Roma women is that they need to recognize the role of the Roma women in the history of the Roma women. Finns need to recognize the model of racialization, and understand that the anti-chipsi way of seeing and treating the Roma is not normal and in no way justified. This injustice with its deep roots in the past has yet not been questioned, and thus not condemned in Finland. By recognizing the wrongdoings, there is a chance of creating a shared will of not wanting to repeat the history. This is something I want to believe in. The word of the Roma identity is the origin of many Roma identities. This seems to be the only way to express the racism within us, the inner itself of the Roma woman. Our common community does not speak of us in a funny way. Roma women are linked to other forms of negative stereotypes. The word of the Roma or the black man is used in a synonym when someone wants to fight. We also need the opportunity to live in peace if we use our Romani identity as an example to change our name. No one wants to be a failure or a failure. The Roma identity, we're going to now discuss the history of Roma to the Roma identity point of view. So the Roma identity of many Roma in Finland is not strong. This can manifest itself in internalized racism, self-hatred or shame of being a Roma. The society around us does not talk about us very kindly. There are many negative stereotypes associated with being a Roma. The words Romani or Gypsy are used interchangeably as belittling names. We are offered the possibility to succeed in life as long as we hide our background by changing our names, for instance. No one wants to be seen as a failure or a target of ridicule. The Roma have to get to the point where they see their own history and take it from their own people. The need to get to this point is to keep the history of Roma as an example, to get a sense of community interest and to talk about it. Roma can talk about it other than through the negative influence. Many Roma's internalized racism and self-hatred influence can be seen as a failure, a shame and a waste of information from their own history. If other communities talk about it and the media notice our history, it makes sense that we also have the right to talk about it and feel proud of it. The knowledge of our own history is given to the Roma identity as a welcome to the bank. The Roma people need to see the significance of their own history and take ownership of it. In order to achieve this, we need to promote the Roma history, raise social interests and encourage discussions related to it. When talking about the Roma, the negative approach is not the only way to approach the topic. Racism and self-hatred, many Roma people have internalized, manifest itself as a lack of interest and knowledge towards their own culture, for example. If the society and media talked about and took our history into account, it would pass Roma people a message of having the right to talk about it and even take pride in their own history. Knowing one's own history would create a strong and healthy base for Roma identities. The history of the Roma has been different from the writing of the Roma. The history of the Roma has been in the hands of researchers and historians. If the education of the Roma was different, this situation could also be different. However, when the situation is what it is, our history, our language and culture are shown to be of great value. Some of the research processes are challenging and listen to the Roma, so we are not with them. But the studies are important to understand what we are talking about and how. In Finland, Roma people also have a lack of interest in writing and research. And this certainly also affects what Roma people want or believe in those challenges. Up until now, the history of the Roma has been written by other than the Roma themselves. It has been in the hands of researchers and historians. If the educational level of the Roma was different, the situation we are living in could be very different too. But as it is, what it is, the experts of our history, language and culture all seem to belong to the majority population. Naturally, these experts have interviewed and heard the stories of the Roma during their research projects. So we have been included in these projects in a way. But what the researchers have been able to define is the topics for discussion as well as the approach to these discussions. The Finnish Roma hold a relatively low trust in authorities and research studies. This surely affects what the Roma feel they want or dare to share in the interview situations. Finland's vote is strong. And the works of the Roman historians have fallen. In 2012, the Panupuulman published the work of the Finnish-Roman historian. This was a study by the Ministry of Education. There has been no longer, not at this moment, a direct connection with the vote of the Finnish-Roman historian. The work of the Panupuulman has been good and low. Almost 500 pages have been published. How true is this? That the people from the low-income socio-economic institutions are coming here to read the books of the Romanians. In the first page of the book, the authors of the book, Karlet Kumpaneinen, are not allowed to add more books if the book is originally included in the history of the Romanians. The question is about the quality. The support for the Roma history given by the Finnish state has not been strong. In 2012, a book written by Panupuulman about the history of the Finnish Roma was published. The Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture is one of the supporters of this book. This is the amount the history of the Finnish Roma has received support from the state up to this day. Bulma's book is great and very extensive piece of work with nearly 500 pages. But how likely would a person with a lower socio-economic status such as a Roma in this case read the book? The names of the multiple Swedish kings mentioned on the first pages of the book may not spark an interest to read the book further if the initial intention has been to familiarize oneself with the history of the Roma. This is a matter of accessibility. We published the book in February 2023 on the history of the Romanian history. The campaign took place during the month in a daily social media publication of short stories and historical facts. The stories were told in a more dramatic way and the stories were published in the 50s to the 70s in Finland. The stories also came as an example of what stories were believed to be told. For example, in the history of the Viennese myth the story tells an old man's mind that could this story be revealed to the Romanians? The history of the events took place in the decades after the discovery of the story and the impact of it on the public and the public. This story has not been seen in the light of the day if it had not been a challenge and a writer of another Roman. In April 2023, we dedicated the whole month to the history of the Roma. The Roma History Month campaign consisted of daily short stories and historical facts published on social media for one month. The stories were told by the elderly Roma people and they were set in Finland of 1950s and 1970s. While collecting the stories, the question of what one can dare to share came up. One elderly person, for instance, wondered if they can publicly tell a story about selling alcohol without affecting the Roma people negatively. The incident had taken place decades ago and the story was all about survival, humanity and taking care of one another. Had the interviewer and writer not been another Roma person the story would never have been shared. In the month of the Roman History Month, the Roma people were positive. Even though we had difficult and difficult times during the summer holidays, after the campaign, there were still many Roma stories. Before this campaign, the history of the Roma has not been seen in the light of the day. Our history is important. The feedback concerning the Roma History Month was positive. Although some of the social media posts were a bit weightier, many Roma people expressed it had been a pleasant to read the stories, even long after the campaign had ended. Before this campaign, the history of the Roma had never received such attention in social media. Our history was a bit different from the history of the Roma. Our history requires recognition and acknowledgement. Our history matters and it's time to make it visible. Our history requires recognition and acknowledgement. Thank you. Thank you, Leif. Thank you also, Arnon, for the help. And thank you, Leif, for explaining us that sometimes when the state doesn't promote historical and memories about the Roma people, there are people who are aware, civil society and young people who are aware to use new technologies and new tools to spread the history. So thank you, Leif. Now I have next to me Kiara Nelcioni. She's part of the University of Pisa and Florence in Italy. She's affiliated for the Ferruccio Parri National Institute for Resistance and Contemporary History. And she researchers about contemporary history and politics, the Roma people, the Balkans and also the Holocaust. So, Kiara, I'm happy to have you here. I try. Okay, it works. So, hi everybody. I'm very glad to be here. I would like to thank you all for being here and in particular Eurom and Novak for inviting me. I'm so glad to talk about gypsy that are not right to call them gypsy or Zingari in Italian language, but Roman Sinti because they are really unknown in Italy and they are in a bad condition because of stereotypes and prejudices. So, this talk is about gypsy persecution by Italian fascist dictatorship and the memories of such a crime in present Italian society, where also nowadays gypsies are victims of eight speeches and segregation. Fascist totalitarianism persecuted the Sinti and Roma, starting in the 20s, fascist politics progressively radicalized outlying four periods of reference. The first one is between 1922-1938. The rejections and forced removal of gypsy foreigners or presumed to be such from the Italian territory. The second one is 1938-1940. The ethnic pleasing against all gypsies in the border regions, especially northeast and their confinement in Sardinia and other isolated places. The third period is 1940-1943. The arrest of all gypsies either foreigners or Italian and the creation of a network of concentration camps in Italy that were uniquely reserved to gypsies. The last and the worst one is between 1943-1945. The arrest of all gypsies by the Italian Social Republic and the deportation to Nazi concentration camp. The war process towards the persecution of Rome and Sinti in Italy was supported by studies of university professors including Guido Landra and Renato Semizzi who elaborated and disseminated the concept relating to gypsies race and infirority in the psychomoral sphere and innate tendency towards nomadism Poraimus in Italy is very little known. During the first decade of the second millennium documents relating to Rome and Sinti concentration were published between 2012-2013. The European Union founded project called Memors was set up. This is the first virtual museum of the Poraimus in Italy. You can see the web page of this project. It is also translated into English. The project is aimed to reconstruct the history and the memory of deportation of Sinti and Roma putting documents online, collecting interviews to witnesses promoting initiative at memorial site and actively involving the Roman Sinti population. This January in January so 2023 was set up the project REM Against Dism reinforcing historical memory of the Poraimus to combat discrimination. It is in continuity with Memors and it aims to reconstruct the memory of the discrimination and the persecution that the Roman Sinti suffered during the Nazi fascism period and afterwards in order to build a more inclusive society today. It is important to spread knowledge about Poraimus and to include this topic in school books. In Italy we have nothing about it in school books. Something about Jewish persecution, of course, but not persecution against either minorities in particular Sinti and Roma. There is a link between Nazi and fascist discrimination and the persecution of Gypsies and racial prejudice that still survives. Let's see the connection. Hermann Arnold, never accused or persecuted was a German medical officer. He died just few years ago in 2005. He was primarily known as a gypsy expert fully convinced about the genetics controlling of Roma population using sterilization. I want to underline that sterilization in Europe, for instance, in Switzerland stopped only in 1980. His publication, in particular, Didzy Goiner, became a masterpiece of gypsy studies. In his book, Hermann Arnold affirmed that the primitiveness of gypsies their inability to reach a normal IQ. According to his theory, he formulated the gypsy pedagogy that will be the basis of many experiences and experiments of Roma and children education even in Italy, which has been scientifically and politically criticized only in the 80s. In Italy, around 1960, there were neither knowledges nor memory of Porimus, but Arnold's book was very popular. So, educationalist Mirella Carpaty in collaboration with Don Bruno Niccolini in 1963 founded an association called Opera Nomadi. Recognized as a moral and a profit association by presidential degree in 1970, Opera Nomadi is present throughout, is still present throughout the country with 27 sections from Bolzano north to Sicily south with over 500 members. It aims to promote integration of Roma, Sinti and Travera, minorities into Italian society to obtain the recognition of a Roman Sinti as an active and linguistic minority to counter widespread prejudices about the Roma population in particular and to exercise cultural mediation between these minorities and the majority culture. Since the 60s, Roman culture was quite unknown. Stereotypes were persisting such as dangerous, nomad, retarded. In 1963, Carpaty started a gypsy pedagogical program called Romano Tem. That means gypsy world. And carried out IQ tests on gypsy babies. Evaluating IQ between 0.81 and 0.96, so between low and middle levels. It was this conviction that lead Opera Nomadi members to create special classes called Laciodrom, regarding Roma children without such skill to study with other children. And put them into special schools for mentality-challenged babies. That caused the preservation of stereotypes about this minority and the permanence of social exclusion in the present. It was a kind of cultural ethno-site. Laciodrom classes were the first explicit startle attempts to assimilate gypsies. They were officially abolished in 1977. But in some Italian cities, Laciodrom classes remained active until at least the middle of the 80s. It is estimated that there is an average about... Of course, now the school inclusion of Roma and Sinti is still problematic, you know. In Italy, it is estimated that there is an average about 150,000 Roma. So, 0.23 of Italian population, you can see is a small number, but in absolute and in relative terms. Due to the enlargement of the European Union to East between 2004-2007, around 2 million Roma became European citizens. Many countries such as Italy, but not only Italy, France, Great Britain, Belgium tried to restrict their freedom of movement. The fear of invasion, manipulated to the distorted use of data, stories and images, is what many governments used to justify the drastic measures they have taken to stop the Roma arrive. In a country like Italy, with an exaggerated political and public debate against Roma, this has fostered the spread of xenotopic and anti-Gypsies behavior. In Italy, the percentage of Roma and Sinti children under the age of 16 is 45%. So, it's a three times higher than the national average, that is only 15%. We are a country for old people. It is therefore a population of young people with a high birth rate, but a low life expectancy. The percentage of over 60s is 3%, so it's about one tenth of the national average for the same age group, that is 25%. This is due to precarious living conditions. The Roma people face poverty, social exclusion and racism on a daily basis, but the two separate phenomena, poverty and racism, are closely linked. A report in 2013 by the 21 July Association about anti-Gypsies in Italy, comes to the conclusion that the stereotypes about Roma are fooled by politicians' statements and press reports. According to the reports in Italy, 1.43 cases of incitement to hatred and discrimination against Roma and Sinti were recorded every day, mostly through statements by politicians spread by newspapers, websites and social networks. Stereotypes and prejudices towards these communities are filled by a daily average of 1.86, so quite two incidents of misinformation by local and national media. 75% of cases of incitement to hatred are to address to politicians of which 59% related to members of the right wing or center right parties. Now we have quite fascism at the government so you can imagine the situation in Italy nowadays. 58% of cases of incitement to hatred are to address to private citizens and 20% to journalists. This paper first disseminated speeches followed by website, Twitter and Facebook. From the geographical location point of view, it's speeches in the center north of Italy where a parties like Lega Nord that is very right oriented that was born take the relative lead with the 52% of whom 22% in Lombardia is the richer region in Italy alone. In the center south stands at 43%. The most significant data regards the city of Rome, so Italian capital, which alone covers about 32%. Practically a third of the entire national territory where about 5,000 and 50% 5,000 and 50% 100 Roma citizens live in nomad camps. I will later talk about nomad camps and remain social marginalized and deprived of jobs and rights. The first problem are the nomad camps. This is a reality that with very few exceptions does not exist in other European countries characterized by inhuman and the great incondition of cruel marginalization incompatible with any project of inclusion and integration. Roman settlements are often destroyed without any regards for replacement housing. Even if the vast majority of Roman city, 4 out of 5 in Italy live in houses, study, work and lead a life like any other Italian or foreign citizen live in the country, reports of degradation in nomad camps prevail. The political debate on the closure of Roman camps has been going on for 10 years, but according to UNAR, UNAR is the National Anti-Racism Discrimination Office. So UNAR report dated September 2023, so just two months ago, about 26,000 Sinti and Roma are still in housing emergency and 109 open air mono-ethnic settlements remain. The second problem regards the education of children living in nomad camps. 20% of them never starts his schooling or had a regular attendance. Teenagers drop out of school early and only 1% go to university. The third problem concerns work. Being recognized in Roma is an obstacle to finding a job even for those who had started a job or starting training courses and looked at promising. The second problem I want to highlight is that of participation in politics. Roma and Sinti people do not have sufficient public representation. There is a proliferation of anti-Roman prejudice. Indeed, Italy and Czech Republic have the highest percentage of hostility towards Roman Sinti in Europe. According to the data on the history of interior, 81% of Italian like Sinti and Roma little or not at all. The judgments associated with gypsy are types, 92%, closed, 87%, living in camps on the edge of cities by choice, 83%. Marginalized, 65%, with a strong sense of freedom, 85%. According to Eurobarometer, the European value survey, 47 of Italians feel uncomfortable with the idea of having a Roma as a neighbor. And only 7% were yes at the question, to have Roma friends. In general, Italians have a negative opinion about Sinti and Roma. They are people less liked in Italy. So the worst category. The growing anti-gypsies in Italian society is region in recent year has led to several warnings towards Italy by international institutions such as the Council of Europe in 2008, 2009 and 2011. And the third, that is a committee on the elimination of racial discrimination ruled by United Nations. The report commissioned by the Senate Human Rights Commission in 2021 pointed out a reluctance to declare oneself Roma. This is because of general tendency to link to the image of Roma and Sinti, every form of deviance and the criminality. The image of a Roman Sinti in Italy is marked by a lack of knowledge. Just 56% of Italians say they have no idea how many Roma live in Italy. And 84% of Italians believe that these groups are mainly nomads. Only 25% know that about half of Roma are Italian citizens. Their story a little known, partly because many Roman are reluctant to reveal their identity for fear, for hostile prejudice. So what is Italian government doing to contrast it? You are implemented the first national strategy for the inclusion of Roman Sinti and Travellers between 2012-2020. And the second national strategy for equality inclusion and participation of Roman Sinti 2021-2030 was adopted last May, the 23rd of May, 2023. And what are Roman Sinti communities doing to contrast prejudices? Four years ago, Ucri, that is Italian union and Roman S communities, was born. It is a no profit federation that aims to eradicate welfareism and to enhance the Roman culture, free of stereotypes in all forms, to make poor animals officially recognized and to have Italian government approve the law on the recognition of linguistic minorities in Italy. Ucri struggles to guarantee stable houses and equal rights. In 2021, Ucri founded the National Romani Academy, you can see the website, that offers free courses about the Roma culture, anti-Gypsism and porraimos. And what are the cultural and research centers and the university doing to fight against discrimination and to let people know about porraimos? In 2021, a book trilogy titled Atreversare Auschwitz going through Auschwitz by Luca Bravi from the University of Florence and Eva Ritzin, that is a Roma from the University of Verona was published. A photographic exhibition titled Memoria Sinti was set up in Bologna last June. Memors, the virtual museum about porraimos in Italy was renewed in January. In the past, only two memoirs, it's for you, only two memoirs written by Italian Gypsies were published. The first one was Zyganni, Vita di Roma by Giuseppe Legvakovic in 1975. The second one, Strada Patria Sinta by Niu Godebar in 1998. But in this year, in 2023, Lai Oderagna, Iai Oderagna is a Roma published Vita in Camino, the autobiography of a Roma family in Milan. And Yuki Erzenberger published Il Diario di Yuki a unique document of its kind set between the 50s and today is an intense autobiographical journey in a daily struggle for survival. In this January, began the second project reinforcing the historical memory on porraimos to combat the discrimination and some historical institutes for resistance and contemporary history. For example, the one in Modena, Luca, Grosseto and the university. For example, Florence and the Chieti give conferences, training courses, workshops for teachers and students. My essay, A Forza di Asilevento, will be printed in January, next January, so in January, 2024. The book is composed by two parts. The first one is an historical essay about the fascist persecution, concentration and deportation of Roma people. And the second one contains transcriptions of testimonies given by Roma and Sinti witnesses of first and second generation persecuted by fascists. And that's all. Thank you for listening. Thank you very much for your intervention. As a good teacher, you have done to us a very good history lesson of the porimos in Italy. And what I liked the most and what I extract about your speech is like how the little knowledge of Roma people affects to hate speech and Roma-phobia. So, Chiara, thank you very much. And now we have the third speech from Emir Gervic. He is part of the Croatian-Romani Union Calisara and Roman Memorial Center in Croatia. He is a political advisor. He is an expert in human rights and minority rights. And member of the Croatian delegation of the IHRA, that is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. And he's also a member of the Human Rights Council of the Croatian government. Emir, thank you for being here. The floor is yours. Thank you, Noria. Thank you for having me here. Thank you to Nolak and Eurorom and for the opportunity to share the Croatian experience. First of all, I wanted to speak only about what you hear in Spain called democratic memory or memory policies in Croatia. But from conversation with you and with other colleagues here I noticed that not a lot is known here about Croatia. So I changed my presentation a little bit and I sketched some facts here that I want to share. I also want to greet Sal Cizmis here. He's from Barcelona. He's a very well known member of international member of Calisara and he very often visits us in Croatia and participates in our events. So any of you that find interesting things that I will speak about interesting can also contact Sal here in Barcelona. He can be our link between Croatia here and Catalonia and Spain. I work as an advisor to the member of the parliament in the Croatian parliament and I also work for the Croatian Romanian union Calisara. I want to give you a little bit more of a frame to understand how minorities in Croatia work and how minorities in Croatia are organized. So Roma community in Croatia then in the second part I will go back to the central topic of the memory and what we did about it and it's important to understand what is done on a more global level. So Roma community in Croatia is very diverse. We have around 17,000 members of the Roma community in Croatia and they are just one of 22 recognized national minorities by the Croatian constitution. So besides this we have eight members of the parliament from national minorities and one of them is Mr. Ketazian. He represents 12 national minorities so he doesn't only represent the Roma national minority but 11 others. National minorities are also most of them are organized in NGOs and with years it became like this that every national minority has its own head organization. Croatian-Romania union was founded more than 15 years ago and it started to work with language, just preservation of Romani language and Kali Saria is actually best known for introducing the world day of Roma language and it's marked all around Europe and of course also here in Barcelona by Seos Cizmi. So this was the start of Kali Saria. It was beginning with the first Roma dictionary that was published in 2008. So a little bit more about the structure of Kali Saria. By our constitutional law we also elect local representatives of national minorities. Croatian-Romania union serves as when I said this is the head organization it means that they also serve as an umbrella organization for smaller individuals but also for the representatives that are elected on elections in their local communities. So this is a sketch from 2017 I think but it has to be updated but the structure is like this. We have Roma organizations, we have individual members, we have representatives that are elected on minority elections and we have also members and I would say it's about 80% of the Roma community revolves around Kali Saria. Like I said before the last census shows that we have 17 almost 18,000 Roma people in Croatia and it's 0. 46% of the whole population so it's not big but these numbers can also be challenged because we think we at least have 25,000 some estimates say even 40,000 of Roma. So this problem of Roma not declaring themselves as Roma can be explained if you look at the other numbers also. You can see that in 1948 we only have 405 Roma representatives. So of course this is the consequence of what Roma call Samodari pen or the genocide of the Roma in the Second World War. This is what I was telling you about a little bit earlier so the start of Kali Saria it was only a small NGO that dealt with language and later on it became what it is now our president Susanna Kretschmarst it's very rarely that you see a woman leading a Roma organization and this is the biggest one in Croatia so we are very proud of that. Yes. So this is our headquarters in the city center of Zagreb. It's our central office and we also have of course regional offices and many other things that I will not be able to show you in this short period but just a few photos. This is the central library of the Roma in Croatia. It's also located in Zagreb in our central office. We are very proud on the work that we do with the media. We have a Roma educational and informational center. This is actually where we speak to our current Prime Minister Andre Plenkovic in our studio. We also have an online radio so you can also download it if you want from any app for iPhone or other smartphones it's called Radio Kali Sara. This is our magazine and web portal Pralipen it's written in four languages in Croatian and in English and also in the language of the Roma that we have in large numbers in Croatia. This is also one of our biggest projects. It is the biggest project that we are working on now currently and it's the construction of European Roma Cultural Sports Center and this center will be located most in Istria and Croatia and it will look like this and it will be at disposal for all NGO Roma organizations from around Europe. It hopefully will be done in two years. The biggest result of our work in the last six years is the Roma Memorial Center Uštica. This center was built in 2018 it started in end of 2016 so it took only one and a half year to build it. One and a half year to build it. The idea came of course from our MP Erko Kajtasi in 2016 he became part of the coalition with the government and one big step that was introduced by the current government that is now serving the end of its second term is the additional document that they introduced and it was mentioned in Italian case that you also have national strategy for the Roma inclusion but our experience was that this document was not enough so during the talks that we had with the government we said we want additional document and this document should be short it should list the projects that we want to do when will they do it and money should be allocated to do this so we had like 20 different activities there and they dealt with all kinds of different needs of the Croatian Roma community education housing and so on and one of the most important parts of this document was to build a memorial center so Uštica is located next to Yasenovac Yasenovac was a set of camps that was set up by the independent state of Croatia and this is unfortunately the largest single site in Europe of executions when I say the largest the official numbers of the Yasenovac institution is 16,000 Roma were killed here this you can see it from the sky and in the back of the Roma memorial center we have 22 mass graves of the Roma this is not the only place where the Roma were killed since it was not only in Yasenovac but also in other camps but this is the single biggest one most of the Roma were killed immediately when the war started in 1942 I'm not a historian I'm more of an advisor in political documents so these are slides which is only working in the Roma memorial center terminology we spoke about it already it is very important to say that Roma community refers to this genocide in the Second World War by Samudari Pan prior as you know they used word Porjamos but it's very important to us not to confuse it with Holocaust as our colleague from Germany said this is why we have separate Roma monuments and this is why we argued that what happened to the Roma was very specific to the Roma and we in Croatia also unfortunately had in the Independence Day to Croatia with the current state we had racial laws that were introduced during the beginning of the war in this region and these laws were implemented very quickly as I said most of the Roma were killed already by 1942 today we don't have any survivors of Samudari Pan the last one died one year ago so we don't have many stories to tell with people that survived unfortunately these are examples from the newspapers from the history this is a notice of mandatory Roma listing in Zagreb and these were implemented on the whole territory of independent state of Croatia that was also covering whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of some other countries so these systematic deportations happened until 1942 we will never know the exact numbers because Roma were not listed by names and surnames in Yasenovac we have also we also have stories on how they were deported by vegans so we don't have exact numbers and we will never have them so Ustitaj as I said was a separate camp it is also important to say that they were held separate from other prisoners in the camp so these are the exact numbers 16, 173 that we have and these when I said that we have them it's the official records of the Yasenovac institution and to correct myself it's 21 not 22 Musgraves the site was marked in 1971 and it became the part of the institution in 1983 so the cemetery that we have behind the Roma Memorial Center is actually run by the state institution called Yasenovac Memorial Site and the museum is run by Croatian-Roman Union Kalisara in future we will see what will happen with this we hopefully for now we are happy with the status of the museum but in the future there might be some changes this is the photo from the opening in the back you can see the guy with the hat I think that's Santino Spinelli's son this one those are because we cooperate with Santino very closely and we are currently also in one project that's in regard to Second World War so these are some more photos of the museum I want to also quote one professor he is writing about Roma in 2004 and he writes this Roma in Croatia have citizenship issues they are not represented in the structure of the central government and very rarely at the local level they are not represented in the Croatian parliament and he mentions that political organizations of the Roma have almost no influence in the political life of Croatia in 2004 this changed from 2008 onwards so just a few years later when the dictionary came out and when Calisara started to work more this gradually started to change and in 2012 the first commemoration for the Roma victims was held on the Roma cemetery in Croatsson so prior before the centre was built so from 2012 all the way to today we organized central remembrance days and it's also very important to say that the Croatian parliament also adopted this day as an official day as well as the world of Romani language and this is also what we try to love before in other countries we also spoke with the here in the Catalan parliament about these initiatives and we hope that other parliaments will also do this as it was done in Croatia when the Roma memorial centre was built we decided to build another memorial right next to it so behind the Roma memorial centre we built a monument for all the victims of the Roma in the independent state of Croatia and we did it with a monument that consists of 120 marble plates with engraved names of all victims the whole list of all victims is put there we have some additional photos of this monument on the right you can see a monument to Rajasamang nations declared by Yad Vashem Hairea and she is the only known Roma person that has been declared Rajasamang nations and this is the last project that we had there in Uštica we introduced a monument dedicated to her and she is known because she saved a Jewish girl in Kosovo so more photos of the wall of pain we are also very happy that we have support not only from the government but by all public institutions we are very proud that last five years we have the Central Commemoration broadcasted on the Croatian National Television live so this is something that doesn't happen very often it's very costly and it was very hard to get the state television to follow this event but we are happy to do it on this photo here you can see the Prime Minister in the background there is Susan Akršmarshi the President of Croatian-Roman Union and on the right also on the photo we have Alan Tahiri he is the head of Office for Human Rights of the Croatian Government and he comes from the Roma community so here you see the Prime Minister Ministers in Uštica and I have to say that this didn't happen one time it happens every year the Centre of course does all kinds of different activities one of those is the summer school for younger Roma people and also their friends not only Roma and we organise a set of lectures prior to 2nd of August every year and we cooperate in this project with other institutions for example Srebrenica Memorial Centre in Bosnia so this is it will take forever for me to tell you about all projects but our goal is to include the Roma Memorial Centre and the history of the Roma in Croatia in the curriculum and we are actively working on it these are more photos from the mass graves these concrete lines are the lines where were the limits of the concrete graves this is on the left you have the President of Croatia the current President of Croatia visiting Ustica also and this is a photo when the Roma Memorial Centre was opened with of course members of the Government I will leave some time for discussion because I didn't even tell all that I noted before the presentation started as I said before here is Seo he will stay with you here in Barcelona and he can be the link so if you have any more questions if you want to cooperate with us please contact him and hopefully we will continue our good cooperation that we have with organisations in Barcelona thank you thank you very much for making us understand all the job that you have done in Croatia about Roma community congratulations also to the organisation Calisara because I know that you are doing a great job and a lot of activities to keep alive the Sinti and Roma memory I am glad to see the Roma Memorial Centre in Ustica so I think that all the ideas that you gave us could also even I know that of course there will be a lot of things to do all the ideas that you gave us will serve us to inspire us and to inspire other associations in Europe to keep on working for memory so here thank you also to the member of Calisara because he is here with all of us and I am sure that the associations in the afternoon that they are more focussed in local work we can start making more contacts and working all together so I think we have time to one or two questions for the public what I have I don't know if Can I speak in Spanish? Can I speak in Spanish? Good, good day Good day and congratulations for this day I think it is very important to organize the I think that it is very important to organize workshops like this one it is very important to create such a such a work such a workshop but let me talk about a couple of standpoints from our Roma point of view we have talked about Finland, Italy and Roma but we as Roma people we need to show the mechanisms to activate ourselves and to think and I am not sure if everyone understands Spanish but if not please if not you can use simultaneous translation so let me say that I am very happy to see the Roma society present in this event it is another way to show that this is an interesting topic when we talk about genocide or about European or international organization it is very important to mention Roma but when we talk about the local we can say gypsies or gitanos in Spanish but when we talk about genocide it has to be Roma when they talk about concentration camps or death camps then it has to be Roma after the Second World War there has been a huge silence from the Roma peoples we have stepped aside we have kept quiet and it has taken us a lot of time and effort to make the genocide known Porraimos hasn't been used for many years in Italy we didn't know about these terms there were many many pressures and nowadays as Amir said they chose to use Samudari Ben so that's another term to discuss this same situation when we talk about the holocaust the Roma holocaust we need to mention something very important all of this the doesn't come from nowhere there has been a strong Roma activism we've seen some images of Roma Neroza he had to do crazy things in order to obtain results and this is so important activism activists such as myself said we never sleep or Primo Dardet we never sleep and Romaphobia often takes up so much space of our time we cannot move forward in other fields because we're always fighting this Romaphobia so we don't have time to build our own identity because we're too busy fighting Romaphobia Finland mentioned that as well and I can also talk about Italy because I am a Roma person from the former Yugoslavia but I was born in Italy and I'm very familiar with the Italian situation so first of all we need to abolish gypsy camps that's the first step we need to we need to take and do away with them and in Spain we do have the possibility to build this memory but we also need to to have this crazy ingredient like Roma Neroza we need to do something like they did in Italy to create this commission of truth as it was created in Germany and that's where we will start what happened here with this what happened there isn't much this is only discussed on the 30th of July here only on that date but let's acknowledge this why don't we do that why don't we name streets after that because in Croatia there are lots of movements of this I think that Lene forgot to say that there's a whole park devoted to the 5th of November International Day of the Romani language Roma language so Constantino Spinelli and as we all built the same first the first movement we collected money from our own pockets to build that monument and I think we need to create a truth commission and to talk about the historic debt that we have regarding the Roma people because there's a lot to be done and it is essential to take new steps to reconstruct that also the linguistic genocide, gypsies have lost the Kallol language they don't speak Romano anymore so it is important to build and keep building but it's also important to generate dialogues with other Roma and Sinti people to understand what's going on and to learn from good examples I think that what's going on in Italy what's happening in Germany or in Croatia is Romani Rose when we talk about the 2nd of August and here I will give a floor to you that you mentioned a couple of things about what we did in 2014 all that movement led by young people when we talk about the 2nd of August when we talk about Romani Rose who with his money created or built the Auschwitz movement this ceremony was held every day in 2009 when we talked about creating the movement of decent friendship look and don't forget this was done so 2014 was a turning point in making the 16th of May known as the Day of Resistance in 2014 there were over 2,000 people with survivors many of them are not there any longer but I wish you could talk about this movement for a second if possible microphone please microphone please with your permission this is probably going to be my final intervention because I'm not going to go anywhere else I respect everyone but I'm tired of fighting and preaching to the desert I've always said please let us make our own mistakes you everybody those you represent you never allowed us to speak and when we spoke then we were silenced so we're always stepping on the same stone or stumbling on the same stone the Nazi genocide cost 500,000 gypsy victims or Roma and Sinti people that's false that's false if you don't know ask us questions 34% of the Roma and Sinti population died 3 million gypsies now we're being told that we are 1.5 million please let us make mistakes if we if we may just ask and then we will answer thank you so much hello good morning I wasn't going to speak because I will be participating in this afternoon's panel discussion but let me say that identities are not built as a laboratory or they are not built and cast in plastic identities are built in the coexistence with communities in the living together with the community so if we want to build an identity that is difficult because identities are something that touch people's hearts souls and feelings so communities cannot be built with any kind of well with with projects of all sorts memories cannot be built on empty projects they need to be built with the acknowledgement and collaboration of your elders and your communities I cannot start collecting memories no matter how unless there is a link a bond between me and that community unless my storytelling does not connect with that community so let me add that we are now at a turning point those who are already the elder that generation that connects with the generation of those who have already left please let us compile our memories because when we leave it's going to be really difficult because our youth are simply in a different wavelength that's what I wanted to say further comments or questions? a question addressed to Chiara the arrival of Meloni and the right wing to government can that affect the Roma population in Italy and then a question addressed to Emer in the case of the Roma people history the the Balkan war in the 90s affected the Roma people in Italy today not only for Roma people but for I think everyone and for foreigners for poor people for all who believes in equality and human rights and in particular this year Meloni did not talk so much about Roma communities and nomad camps because she has other priorities fighting against people coming from Africa and migrants and so to fight against parties and so on anyway I have to tell two things in the past Meloni was not a prime minister but she was in the government and our government was led by right oriented parties so a partnership between Berlusconi I have to wash my mouth every time I say Berlusconi and by Leganord that is a racist party born in the north part of Italy fighting against at the beginning the south part of Italy and then spread all over our country fighting against every minorities, migrants foreigners and so on and we had prime minister of interior government called Salvini he is not well educated in cultural either in cultural sense but also in human sense and so he promote a campaign to collect all the information of all the people in Italy and there was a kind of little uprise just little one because just few person know and of course the prime minister didn't know that quite almost Roma living in Italy are Italian citizens because of the common mentality Roma are not Italian are not citizens and it is forbidden in Italy to get fingerprints of citizen of course if you go into the jail if you commit a crime you have to put your finger and tip it the prints but not common people the first step up down against Roma communities and this man now is not minister of interior government but is minister of foreign affairs so the the wind is the same we have many problems connected with nomad camps so they put all Roma people and so not in the city center but in the great suburbs of big cities living in very bad condition without school bus to go for children to go to school without medical centers often without running water and electricity and of course this government is doing nothing about this problem we have more than 2,000 nomad camps in Italy most of them around Roma and I work with three nomads camp in a south part of Italy in Naples we had a project trying to meet teachers activists and social activists to teach them something about Roma peoples and their cultures because they are quite unknown because often children drop out of school and another problem that we had in the past two years is that a Roma family called Santa Monica is connected with organized criminality in Camorra and so this is a great problem because now not only Roma are tips and so on stereotypes but now they are connected with organized criminality and so things are going worse and worse just an example there is a TV series called Casa Monica in which the bad are Sinti and Roma so that's it Yes, I only wanted to ask how the war in western Balkans during the 90s and early 2000 affected Roma communities in Croatia or in the former Yugoslavia, thank you You saw during the presentation from our colleague from Germany that most of them were moved we refer it to as the fifth wave of migration the move of the Balkans Roma to the western Europe and this destroyed whole communities of Roma especially during the war in Kosovo where the Roma were stuck in between two parties that were in war and none of these two parties were in favor of Roma so large settlements of Roma for example in Mitrovica they are almost completely destroyed they live in France, they live in Germany they live in Sweden they live everywhere else the same happened to something similar happened to the Roma in Bosnia and of course some parts of Roma community in Croatia these times of course all people suffered so but we know that the Roma community suffered even more because they were not the participants they were the bystanders but I also want to tell you one thing about the Croatian Roma many of them took up the arms and they fought with the Croatian army to preserve aggression so Kalisara actually made a book about the Roma soldiers in the Croatian army and we made even a documentary about it with interviews of the Roma that participated in the homeland war so this is also a good way to present the Roma community in a way that they also are part of the society and that they actively participated in the creation of a new society in Croatia they were not only not always only bystanders so this movie is also available on Youtube I think it even has titles in English about the participation of the Croatian Roma in the war Thank you Emir Thank you Chiara and Leif and Anu for sharing with us the historical memories in your country and all the experience it has inspired us a lot and thank you all to the public for your inspiration and your time and your activism to make Roma history something more popular