Czech Human Rights Ministry: Database of Roma victims of the Holocaust project discussed with Working Group

On Friday, 7 October 2016, the Working Group for the Redress of Romani people, which advises the Czech Government Council on Romani Minority Affairs, convened for the second time this year. Representatives of the Terezín Initiative Institute were invited and presented the Working Group members with their project on developing a database of Romani victims of the Holocaust.

The aim of the project is to contribute to developing documentation of the Romani victims of the Holcoaust, accumulating and systematizing the data about individual people, and providing the data and materials to third parties to use for awareness-raising, education, research and scholarship about the Romani Holocaust. Members of the Working Group welcomed the project’s intentions but expressed concerns that the data accumulated might be abused in some way.

The Working Group also discussed options for further investigating the fates of the Romani victims of the Holocaust and publishing facts about them. Lastly, the group discussed the most recent developments in the negotiations between the Ministry of Finance of the Federal Republic of Germany in the matter of compensating Romani victims of Nazism and the development of the situation in relation to the memorials at Lety and Hodonín.