Forgotten Romani Holocaust

East European scholars have only recently begun investigating the tragic history of the Roma people under the Nazi regime during World War II. In addition to analyzing the road to the commemoration of the Romani Holocaust, this lecture will also address the role of the Roma themselves in the process. Furthermore, it will present and contrast mechanisms that led to the extermination of the Roma more than 70 years ago and those that are evident in discriminatory practices throughout Europe today.

Małgorzata Kołaczek is an assistant professor at the Institute of Intercultural Studies at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow. She is the co-founder of the Dialog-Pheniben Foundation and former managing editor of the socio-cultural quarterly Dialog-Pheniben. For over fourteen years, she has researched the Roma community with a special interest in the ethnic mobilization of Roma people, its leaders’ activity and non-governmental Roma organizations and in the socio-political situation of Roma people in the Central and Eastern Europe. She is an author of two books and many publications.