Director of the Institute of the Terezín Initiative says story of Czechoslovak Romani partisan could raise awareness of Roma Holocaust

Last month a two-day international conference about Romani victims of the Holocaust was held in Prague by the Institute of the Terezín Initiative and the Antikomplex association in collaboration with the ROMEA organization and other partners. Experts on documenting Holocaust victims and on modern history in Central Europe discussed the current state of research in the area of the Roma Holocaust and their experiences with documenting Holocaust victims generally.

“We have experience with education and research about the Shoah, the Jewish Holocaust. We can take advantage of that methodology to commemorate – and educate people about – the Roma Holocaust,” Tereza Štěpková, director of the Institute of the Terezín Initiative, told news server Romea.cz.

“However, it is necessary to have a broad discussion about this in order to ascertain how to work with that methodology in this case,” she said. “A very important role is played by strong cases that are supported by documentation, facts, numbers and verification.”

“We need a story like Anne Frank’s”, Štěpková said, mentioning the recently-published story of the Czechoslovak Romani wartime hero Jozef Serynek.”That is one of the stories that has the potential to capture the attention of the broader public.”