ROMA Resistance Day

16.05.2024
18:00 – 24:00
Roma Resistance Day • Readings, panel discussion, music in collaboration with CPPD

To mark the Roma Resistance Day , RomaTrial e.V. is organising a two-day international series of events on 15 and 16 May 2024 on the topic of remembering resistance and life after survival.

On 16 May 1944, Sinti and Roma waged armed resistance against their planned murder in the „Gypsy family camp“ at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Several thousand lives were saved as a result. For a moment, hope and empowerment sprouted from the mire of extermination. And that is exactly what we are celebrating 80 years later: the strength of our ancestors, their resistance, their determination – in the midst of the hopelessness and exhaustion of the death camp.

The event on 16 May will take place in cooperation with the Coalition for Pluralistic Public Discourse (CPPD).

Programme:

18:00
Ede and Unku – The True Story
Reading by Estera Sara Stan and music by Janko Lauenberger
40 min // In German

Unku came from a Berlin Sinti family and was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943. However, her story is not only recorded in the children’s novel “Ede and Unku” from 1931, but also in a (partly autobiographical) novel by her great-nephew and jazz guitarist Janko Lauberger and the author Juliane von Wedemeyer in 2018. The young actress and activist Estera Sara Stan will read from the book, accompanied musically by Janko Lauenberger.

18:45
Wiedergutmachungsjude
Reading and music by Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg
40 min // In German

Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg’s verses, full of captivating honesty, are a protocol of abuse and a documentation of a healing process. They tell of what it is like when suddenly nothing – not your parents, your career, your Jewishness, everything you love – is free and unencumbered by „his gaze“, but above all of how literature can become a judge’s hammer that sets right what reality denies. The poet, song pianist and librettist reads from his book “Wiedergutmachungsjude” and accompanies himself on the piano.

19:30
Panel discussion with Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg and Kelly Laubinger
90 min // In German

Under the moderation of Jana Mechelhoff-Herezi, historian and research associate at the Foundation Memorial, Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg and Kelly Laubinger (CEO of the Sinti Union Schleswig-Holstein) discuss the memory of resistance and life after survival. A short video clip of Auschwitz survivor Mano Höllenreiner, whose family led the uprising on 16 May 1944, will be shown at the beginning.

21:30
Party with DJ UCE and Cristinel Manole

Roma Resistance Day is not only a day of remembrance, but above all a day of celebration! We celebrate the strength of our ancestors, their resistance, their determination – and our lives!

Uroš Petković plays as DJ UCE. He is a Serbian producer and composer who, thanks to his projects such as ShazaLaKazoo and Jazzotron, is an important part of the Balkan and e-swing music scene. The trumpet player Cristinel Manole accompanies DJ UCE live and presents the best tradition of Roma* music from the Balkan region.