Nacismus

International Roma flag to fly on buildings throughout Czech Republic tomorrow for Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day

1.8.2017 18:38 Buildings in Brno, Ostrava, Prague and Ústí nad Labem will fly the international Roma flag tomorrow at noon to commemorate the tragic night of 2 August and early morning of 3 August when the Nazis murdered the last prisoners in the so-called Gypsy Family Camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in the gas chambers. During the 17 months of the camp's existence from February 1943 to July 1944 there were a total of 23 000 Romani children, men and women imprisoned in that particular camp.  full story

Romani singer received thousands of hateful verbal assaults, Czech Police charging two people

1.8.2017 16:48 News server Lidovky.cz reports that the Czech Police have discovered the identities of just two of the aggressors who sent thousands of racist messages to the Romani singer Radek Banga after he publicly protested a pop music award given to the hate-inciting Ortel band. The police announcement was made eight months from the moment he received his first hate mail.

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

21.6.2017 6:57 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.  full story

Slovak Prosecutor-General files motion to dissolve Kotleba's party

1.6.2017 13:19 The Slovak Prosecutor-General has filed a motion with the court to dissolve the ultra-right Kotleba-Lidová strana Naše Slovensko (Kotleba-People's Party Our Slovakia,
or LSNS). The party is currently seated in Parliament.  full story

Czech Republic: Conference begins in Prague today about historical experience of Romani people as Holocaust victims

11.5.2017 9:12 The Terezín Initiative, the ROMEA organization and the Antikomplex movement are opening a three-day international conference today on the identity of European Roma in the 20th century in light of efforts to document Romani victims of the Holocaust, the aim of which is to look at the history of the 20th century through the historical experience of the Roma as one of the minorities affected by the Holocaust. The conference will open in Prague and close with a visit to the former concentration camp for Romani people at Lety u Písku on Saturday, 13 May, as part of the annual commemoration there.  full story

Three-volume biography of Czechoslovak Romani partisan, decades in the making, has been published

2.11.2016 12:30 On 21 October the Moravian Museum and the Triáda publishing house launched a new book, "Česká cikánská rapsodie" (Bohemian Gypsy Rhapsody) by Josef Serinek and Jan Tesař at the Dietrichstein Palace in Brno. Those scheduled to discuss this three-volume biograpy of Serinek included Jiří Mitáček, the General Director of the museum, former dissident and former chair of the Czech Senate Petr Pithart, historians Daniel Říčan, Petr Koura and Vítězslav Sommer, conservationist Marta Procházková, publisher Robert Krumphanzl and the author, Jan Tesař, who has worked on the book for decades.  full story

Daniela Cincibusová: Reflections on a visit to a former death factory

16.8.2016 9:48 Oświęcim, a small town in southern Poland, is infamous as the location of Auschwitz, the Nazis' biggest concentration and extermination camp not just for Jewish people, but also for Romani people and anybody who did not conform. Many innocent people died there.  full story

Commentary: How to demolish the pig farm at Lety?

5.8.2016 18:48 "Lety is a problem the resolution of which can naturally be postponed indefinitely. It is not known how much it will cost for the clean-up operation - and over the years that amount has loosely ranged from between roughly CZK 70 million (EUR 2.59 million) to a virtual billion crowns (EUR 37 million) - but it is certain that basically it will never be possible to properly 'calculate' it or compare it to anything that might placed on the table as a counter-argument that 'it would be better to spend that on XYZ' ", writes Czech journalist Jindřich Šídlo on news server iHNED.cz in response to remarks by Czech Culture Minister Daniel Herman about resolving the problem of the industrial pig farm on the site of the former concentration camp for Romani people at Lety by Písek.  full story

Čeněk Růžička: Roma Holocaust survivors will use upcoming compensation for their funeral costs

5.8.2016 13:00 Yesterday the news server HlídacíPes.org reported on Germany's breakthrough decision, according to the Czech Foreign Ministry, to further compensate Romani people in the Czech Republic who are Holocaust survivors. Today HlídacíPes.org has published an interview on this and other issues with the President of the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust in the Czech Republic, Čeněk Růžička.  full story

EU Commissioners on Roma Holocaust Memorial Day: Too many Roma are victims of hate crime in Europe

2.8.2016 14:44 News server NewEurope.eu reports that First Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, and Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Commissioner Věra Jourová have issued a joint statement on the occasion of Roma Holocaust Memorial Day. The statement recalls that on the night of 2 to 3 August 1944, around 3 000 Roma men, women and children from the "Gypsy family camp" of Auschwitz-Birkenau were murdered in the gas chambers.  full story

Czech Roma to mark International Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day at Auschwitz memorial

1.8.2016 11:20 Tomorrow, Tuesday, 2 August, Roma people from all over Europe will mark International Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day. On the night of 2 August 1944 and into the early
morning hours of 3 August 1944, a total of 2 898 Sinti (German Roma) and Roma children, men and women were murdered in the gas chambers of the Nazi concentration and
extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.  full story

Germany: British neo-Nazis tweet photo of themselves giving the Nazi salute at Buchenwald

28.5.2016 8:36 Two members of a British neo-Nazi group have tweeted a photo of themselves giving the Nazi salute during a visit to the site of the former Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald. German media drew attention to the case on 26 May and report that authorities are investigating.  full story

Čeněk Růžička: Relatives of the Romani victims of Nazism and survivors disagree with anti-refugee sentiment

20.5.2016 13:26 Čeněk Růžička, chair of the Committee for the Redress of the Romani Holocaust in the Czech Republic (VPORH), has criticized the absence of any systematic research into the causes and consequences of what happened to Romani and Sinti people during Nazism and the sharing of such information with the public. "For example: How did the arrest of the Romani families by the individual stations of the gendarmerie take place during the Protectorate era? What exactly was confiscated from each family, never to be returned? How did the collaboration of the Czech Protectorate’s Interior Ministry with the Nazis work when it came to the persecution of the Roma?" he asked during last week's commemorative ceremony, during which he also clearly spoke out against xenophobic populists.  full story

Chair of Czech Freedom Fighters' Union makes anti-refugee speech during Terezín commemoration, Chief Rabbi objects on the spot

17.5.2016 8:16 On 15 May, participants in the Terezín Commemoration Ceremony remembered the victims of Nazi persecution at the National Cemetery in front of the Small Fortress at the Terezín Memorial. The chair of the Czech Freedom Fighters' Union (Český svaz bojovníků za svobodu - ČSBS), Jaroslav Vodička, gave an anti-refugee, xenophobic speech, to which Chief Rabbi Karol Sidon gave an emotional response.  full story

Czech Republic: 11 organizations call on Terezín to fly the LGBTQ and Romani flags during traditional commemoration

29.4.2016 11:22 Eleven organizations working on LGBTQ and Romani topics have called on the Terezín Memorial to fly the LGBTQ (Rainbow) flag and the Romani flag next to the flags of nations whose members fell victim to Nazi persecution. "To our great surprise, there is no Romani flag flown at Terezín even though, together with Jewish people, it is the Roma as a group who were affected most by Nazi persecution in the Czech lands. More than 90 % of the interwar Romani population did not survive racial persecution and the war itself," the organizations write in an open letter to the members of the Commission for the Organization of the Terezín commemoration, which news server Romea.cz is publishing here in full translation.  full story

Slovakia: Thousands protest Kotleba and clerical fascism in Bratislava

7.3.2016 23:40 Slovak Police say more than 1 000 people assembled today in the center of Bratislava before marching through the streets of the capital to protest the ultra-right party of Marian Kotleba, the People's Party Our Slovakia (LSNS), which scored gains in parliamentary elections this past weekend. The march was gradually joined by others and organizers estimate it reached between 2 000 and 3 000 people by the time it ended.  full story

Commentary: Is Czech society about to rid itself of anti-Gypsyist MEP Miloslav Ransdorf?

10.12.2015 4:32 I have known Miloslav Ransdorf since June 1990, when we were both elected as legislators in the Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia - he for the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, I for Civic Forum (Občanské fórum). We did not see eye to eye there despite my cooperation with most of his comrades in that parliament.  full story

Fortieth anniversary of the death of Hannah Arendt

3.12.2015 17:35 One of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century, the author, philosopher and political theorist of German origin Hannah Arendt, died 40 years ago on 4 December 1975 in her New York office. Thanks to her "desire to understand", she described the roots of the success of modern dictatorships (Fascism and Communism) and the fatal failures of modern elites during those systems' rise to power in her three-volume work "The Origins of Totalitarianism".  full story

Four anti-Nazi fighters received the Memory of Nations award in Prague

18.11.2015 21:18 Four fighters against Nazism were awarded the Memory of Nations (Paměti národa) award in Prague yesterday, including two resistance fighters, a soldier who defended Tobruk, and a woman who escaped a death march. Jana Háková of the organizing association Post Bellum told the Czech News Agency that on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, this year was dedicated to figures from the Czech Republic and Slovakia who stood up to Nazism.  full story

Europe marks Roma Holocaust Memorial Day from Georgia to Ireland

4.8.2015 22:52 Both official and private commemorations and messages of solidarity were sent across Europe on the occasion of 2 August, not only in the EU-28 countries but in places as far-flung as Georgia. This past April the European Parliament passed a resolution recognizing 2 August as Roma Holocaust Memorial Day.  full story