Recognition of the Roma Genocide

 Recognition, official texts

Italy observes 27 January as Holocaust Memorial Day. It is called the Day of Remembrance. The date was established on 20 July 2000 following the adoption of Law No. 211. The law establishes 27 January as a memorial day to remember the racial laws, the Italian persecution of Jewish citizens and those who suffered deportation, imprisonment and death during the Holocaust. It also serves to commemorate those who opposed the Nazi regime and risked their lives to save and protect others.

There is no official acknowledgment of the Roma Genocide in Italy. The “Law 20 July 2000, no. 211, that institutes the Day of Remembrance” for those who have been deported in the concentration camps during the Second World War, doesn’t mention expressly the Roma.

 Data (camps locations, Remembrance places, measures etc.)

1922- 1943Rejections, expulsions and internment

On 19 February 1926, the Minister of Home Affairs ordered that Foreign “Gypsies”, should be rejected, even those in possess of valid documents allowing access to Italy. On 8 August 1926, the Chief of police confirmed that the main objective to be pursued was that of the eradication from the whole national territory of the “gypsy” caravans. On 14 May 1930 the Chief of police ordered the itinerant Italian “Gypsies” to return in their place of origin.

On 6 and 10 December 1937 and on 17 January 1938, the Chief of police ordered an ethnic cleansing of Roma and Sinti in the North-Eastern region of Istria. They were boarded on ferries and confined to several places in Sardinia, between the province of Nuoro and that of Sassari. At least 80 people were deported and scattered in the countryside, under the control of the police.

On the 11th September 1940 the Chief of police ordered all Roma and Sinti (included the Italian nationals) to be interned in specific places. The regime began to prepare a network of concentration camps in Italy that were uniquely reserved to the “Gypsies”. The first camp was located in a former tobacco factory in Bojano (in the province of Campobasso): between 1940 and 1941, 58 Roma and Sinti were taken here from different parts of the country. These were later joined by a further 100 people, who were registered in the camp lists at the beginning of 1943. Agnone (Campobasso) became the main camp for “Gypsies” interned by the Fascist regime; other camps or “place of internment”for Roma and Sinti were created in Berra (Ferrara), Prignano sulla Secchia (Modena), Torino di Sangro (Chieti), Chieti, Fontecchio negli Abruzzi (Chieti). In 1942, a new concentration camp was opened in Tossicia (Teramo).

1943-1945

After the armistice of 8th September 1943, the Roma and Sinti prisoners managed to escape from the camps. During the Nazi occupation and the Repubblica Sociale Italiana, September 1943 – April 1945, a few tens of them were arrested by the German police and deported to Nazi camps.

In Rome, there are two places where the Roma Genocide during the Second World War is remembered: a) in Piazza degli Zingari (Square of the Roma people), near the Coliseum, there is since 2001 a plaque that commemorate the Roma Genocide; b) in the Shrine of “Divino Amore” there is a monument made by Bruno Morelli, as a reminder of the Roma Genocide.

 Specialised institution, commission, research centre etc., dealing with this issue

The virtual Museum of Porajmos is a joint project led by the Archive Study Centre Gypsies of Rome- Foundation ex Campo Fossoli, in cooperation with the association Sucar Drom and the Federazione Rom e Sinti Insieme. It collects data and produces materials and information for the general public.

Associazione Sucar Drom

 Official initiatives (campaigns, actions, projects, commemoration days, museums)

Many Italian cities commemorates 8 April as the International Day of the Roma. There is not a national event related to this day; in fact, all the events and public ceremonies related to this day are organised by each city.

In 2006, the Community of Sant’Egidio proposed a motion, which was approved, for the institution of the International Day of the Roma (8 April) in the municipality of Rome; on this day it is also remembered the Roma Genocide during the Second World War.

Every year, on 16 October, in Rome, the Community of Sant’Egidio, in co-operation with the Jewish Community and the Roma Community, organizes a march to remember the deportation of the Jews from the Ghetto, which took place on 16 October 1943, during the Nazi occupation and in the months thereafter. In that occasion, it is also remembered the Genocide of the Roma during the Second World War. Similar events are held in many other Italian cities.

In 2013, the National Office against Racial Discrimination (UNAR) used Holocaust Memorial Day to raise awareness about discrimination by supporting the inauguration of an installation at the railway station in Milan to remember those who were sent to Auschwitz.

On 27 January 2015, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Italian Senate Human Rights Commission recalls ethnic Roma victims. PD Senator Luigi Manconi, head of the Senate human rights Committee, recalled numerous other victims of Nazi extermination during the Second World War. "On this day of remembrance and commemoration it is right to recall the extermination of ethnic Roma under Nazi-fascism and highlight the new wave of intolerance towards them."