Celebrating Roma Art of Resistance – Berlin Events
May 16, 1944 marks a powerful moment of courage and resistance in history, when Roma prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau bravely rose up against the SS in defiance of their planned extermination. Though armed with little more than their determination, they delayed the Nazi operation and stood together in a profound act of resistance.
On Romani Resistance Day, ERIAC honors their strength, resilience, and the enduring fight for dignity and justice, by hosting a two-day programming titled Roma Art of Resistance.
Thursday, May 15 – 19:00
Kesselhaus, Berlin
Kesselhaus in Prenzlauer Berg, 10435 Berlin
Entrances from Knaackstraße 97 or Sredzkistraße 1
Doors open at 18:00
Ferenc Snétberger – solo guitar
with guest musicians from the Snétberger Music Talent Center
Ferenc Snétberger with Balogh Máté © Bálint Hirling, Müpa Budapest
Ferenc Snétberger, internationally acclaimed by critics and audiences as one of the few truly distinctive voices of contemporary guitar, has developed his own stylistically distinctive world of classical and jazz music, inspired by the Roma tradition of his homeland Hungary, flamenco guitar techniques, samba rhythms and of course JS Bach, in a dialog between today and yesterday.
In 2011, Snétberger founded the Snétberger Musical Talent Center, for the musical education of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. On the occasion of the International Day of Roma Resistance, Snétberger will perform as a soloist – together with talents from his center: Máté Balogh (saxophone) and Flóra Bakonszegi (vocals).
Friday, May 16 – 18:30
ERIAC, Berlin
Reinhardtstraße 41-43, 10117 Berlin
On May 16, ERIAC commemorates International Romani Resistance Day with an evening program dedicated to exploring the mechanisms of state surveillance and Roma resistance through art, research, and dialogue.
18:30 Opening of the exhibition: ROMA RESISTANCE – From Silenced Histories to Agents of Memory
This exhibition draws upon the deep knowledge embedded within ERIAC and builds on the seminal research commissioned by the Tom Lantos Institute, in cooperation with Heidelberg University and the Documentation Center for Sinti and Roma, conducted between 2015 and 2017 under the leadership of Timea Junghaus. This research marked a paradigmatic shift in how we understand the history of the Roma Holocaust.
“Roma resistance is not a footnote in history. It is a living, ongoing process of reclaiming dignity, agency, and a Roma future.” – Timea Junghaus, curator, Executive Director of ERIAC
19:00-19:30 “Approaching Ultra Light”, performance by Romy Rüegger
The performance stages propositions for a rereading of archival materials, sites and memory loops. It is based on a slow, caring research, that navigates questions of remembrance and opacity and the being made of our presence.
The performance navigates archival researches into mug shot photographs and wanted lists, documenting the biopolitical efforts that were applied by the newly founded nation state, in order to settle down non-sedentary living groups in Switzerland, southern Germany and Alsace. A systematic persecution that initiated a range of identity categories and a set of wording, that shows direct continuations in the vocabulary and identity categories used in present-day administration of migration.
Romy Rüegger, Approaching Ultra Light, performance video still, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe 2021. Camera: Mustafa Emin Büyükcoşkun
19:30-20:30 Resistance and Remembrance: Confronting Institutional Antigypsyism Through Art and Research
The panel discussion will bring together Dr. Markus End (Center for Research on Antisemitism, Technische Universität Berlin), a leading researcher and expert on institutional antigypsyism; Dr. Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka (Deputy Director, ERIAC), editor of Re-thinking Roma Resistance Throughout History; and Romy Rüegger, artist, researcher, and ERIAC–Villa Romana artist-in-residence. Together, they will reflect on personal and collective forms of resistance in response to the political and institutional mechanisms of antigypsyism, exploring how historical and contemporary practices intersect across art, scholarship, and lived experience.
The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Maria Bogdan, a media and cultural theorist, specializing in media representation, cultural memory, and the Roma Holocaust. Dr. Bogdan is currently a Fortunoff Research Fellow at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, and a founding member and managing editor of Critical Romani Studies. She previously served for six years as Chair of the ERIAC Barvalipe Academy.
