Initiatives of the civil society

Creative association for arts and culture drom's project “the Forgotten Genocide”:
Drom Association is a creative association for culture and arts, founded in 1976 which promotes equality, multicultural competencies and intercultural interaction. Drom Association was born from the professional Roma theatre Drom, founded within the Theatre Academy of Helsinki. Drom created a personal point of view for the Roma people, and successfully performed in Finland and abroad for 15 years. The Finnish author and Cultural Counsellor Veijo Baltzar is the president of the Drom Association.

In the spring of 2010 the Finnish NGO Drom Association organized in Helsinki an international series of events entitled "The Forgotten Genocide" dedicated to the Roma Holocaust. The president of Finland Tarja Halonen served as the patron of the project. In addition to the Goethe-Institut, the project involved the embassies of the Czech Republic, Austria and Sweden. The Embassy of Sweden provided support for the participation of the Anne Frank Foundation. The main event of was international scholarly seminar "The Roma and the Holocaust" on the history and present situation of the Roma held at the House of Science and Letters in Helsinki on 8 - 9 April 2010. As a neutral country Finland had the worthy opportunity to host these events focusing on the Roma Holocaust. Although the Roma Holocaust has been officially recognized, it isstill far from being processed historically and it is a subject that has remained completely unknown to many people. Other events in this connection consisted of the Barvalo Drom (Rich Road) exhibition at the Caisa Cultural Centre, presenting Roma history, culture and art in broad perspective, and the concert series Barvalo Drom with its main concert at the Savoy Theatre on 9 April. "The Forgotten Genocide" was the first series of events devoted to this theme in Finland and it gained significant visibility both nationally and internationally.

The cooperation was established between the Drom Association and the Anne Frank Foundation with regard to realizing the exhibition "Miranda - the Roma Holocaust. Who's afraid of the White Man?". It is a touring exhibition produced by Drom Association in 2011. "Miranda" has been on display in various venues in Finland since the spring of 2012. Its revised and expanded version was on show at the National Museum of Finland from 13 September 2013 until 23 March 2014. Miranda presents recent European history from a Roma perspective, the vital culture of the Roma, and their present conditions. It tells of a civilized world that did not know, see or hear what happened while enacting the laws and drawing up the rules that led the Roma to the concentration camps and gas chambers of the Second World War. The symbol and uniting concept is the true story of Miranda, the daughter of a Slovakian Roma family who was sent to a concentration camp along with other members of her family. The stories are excerpts from a hitherto unpublished novel by Veijo Baltzar. "Miranda" exhibition has been produced under the direction of Cultural Counsellor Veijo Baltzar and in association with the Anne Frank Foundation of the Netherlands, the Museum of Romani Culture (Czech Republic) and Miika Tervonen Ph.D. (University of Helsinki).

Before that, in the beginning of the 2000s, first public representations of Finnish Roma at war have emerged. Travelling exhibition “Isämme sodassa - meidänkin isänmaame” (Our fathers at war – Finland is also our fatherland), initiated by Pertti Palm, aimed at showing that Roma also made sacrifices during the war to protect the country.