Margarete Kraus, a Czech Roma who was sent to Auschwitz. Wiener Holocaust Library Collections

This two-day, in-person symposium, organised by The Wiener Holocaust Library and the University of Cambridge, will be held at the Library 10 – 11 May 2023. It will bring together early career researchers and senior academics to discuss new directions in the study of the Roma genocide.

Co-convenors: Dr Barbara Warnock, The Wiener Holocaust Library, Clara Dijkstra, The Wiener Holocaust Library and University of Cambridge, Dr Celia Donert, University of Cambridge

Speakers:Ari Joskowicz, Volha Bartash, and others
Date:10 – 11 May 2023
Location:The Wiener Holocaust Library, London

Day 1

10:00 – 11:30: Panel 1, Microhistory (1)
Chair: Celia Donert
Grégoire Cousin: ‘The fate of the Roma deported to Suha-Balca farm: writing a collective history of the victims’
Anna Míšková: “The Return Unwanted’, the story of one family against the background of Nazi persecution in the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia’
Paula Simon: ‘A mosaic of sources: Writing a microhistory of the Samudaripen in Niš, Serbia’

11:45 – 13:15: Panel 2, Microhistory (2)
Chair: Barbara Warnock
Petre Matei: ‘Roma women’s petitions to rescue their deported families: A case study from Romania’
Michala Lônčíková: “Detention Camp for Gypsies’ in Dubnica nad Váhom in the Romani testimonies from the compensation files of Slovakia’
Laura Stoebener: ‘Thirteen Dossiers: Survivors of the genocide of Roma in Belgium’

14:15 – 16:15: Panel 3, Testimonies as objects of analysis
Chair: Clara Dijkstra
Eva Sammadar: ‘Embodying suffering of Roma in Serbia between 1941 and 1944 through arts and oral testimonies’
Helena Sadílková and Lada Viková: ‘Experiences difficult to communicate’: Post-war testimonies by Jan Ištvan, a Romani Holocaust survivor, and the history of his family in the Czech lands’
Maria Bogdan: ‘Self-Representation: Survivor interviews as trauma texts and as part of the deconstructive shift of the Romani movements’

16:15 – 16:45: Project presentation by Fabian Heindl and Markus Gloe: ‘Interactive biographies – A viable approach in educating young people about Romani issues?’

18:30 – 19:45: Keynote lecture by Ari Joskowicz: ‘Roma, Jews and the Holocaust’
Chair: Celia Donert

Register to attend Day 1

Day 2

9:30 – 10:30: Keynote lecture by Volha Bartash: ‘On agency and resistance, Roma in the Soviet partisan movement’
Chair: Barbara Warnock

10:45 – 12:45: Panel 4, State persecution and transitional justice
Chair: Ian Rich
Alexander Korb: ‘Genozide ante Portas? Bavarian anti-traveler legislation and practice in the 1920s’
Lara Raabe: ‘Between bureaucracy and agency: Romani voices in West Berlin restitution proceedings’
Verena Meier: ‘New perpetrator research and voices of the oppressed: The NS genocide against Sinti and Roma in Magdeburg and Transitional Justice after 1945’

13:45 – 14:45: Panel, 5 Commemoration
Chair: Barbara Warnock
Maëlle Lepitre: ‘Remembering the Roma genocide: The case of the Buchenwald memorial after 1989/1990’
Renata Berkyová: ‘Searching for ways to remember the Holocaust of Czech Roma and Sinti in the 1960s and Early 1970s’

14:45 – 15:45: Panel 6, Roma children and the Holocaust
Chair: Toby Simpson
Aisling Shalvey: ‘Identification of victims and uncovering injustice in the Noma experiment on Roma children at Auschwitz’
Justyna Matkowska: ‘Roma orphans in the southeastern area of occupied Poland during WWII’

16:00 – 17:00: Final roundtable: New directions in the study of the Roma genocide
Chair: Christine Schmidt
Karola Fings, Ari Joskowicz, Volha Bartash

17:00: Concluding remarks & end

Register to attend Day 2

Explore the full Draft Programme here.

This symposium is generously supported by the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, the George Macaulay Trevelyan Fund through the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge, and the Past & Present Society.