Anabel Carballo, member of the Spanish team, visited the Research Centre of Yahad - In Unum in the neighbourhood of St. Ouen in Paris in order to collect Romani testimonies from the Nazi genocide for her research.
The Research Centre of Yahad in Unum has archived 360 Roma testimonies from Eastern European countries which have been collected thanks to the research trips of Yahad – In Unum to the former Soviet Union countries in 2009 and also thanks to the collaboration between Yahad – In Unum and the Roma organisation held in Brussels Roma Dignity which started their research trips in Romania in 2011 and since then many research trips have been done.
The research trips were constructed under three main axes: first, to recover the voices of Roma eyewitnesses to make the history of the Holocaust; second, to teach in Europe the history of the Roma genocide; and third, to fight discrimination and persistent racism against the Roma today.
An interesting feature of this project is the implementation aspect. The research team (professional cameraman, photographer, team leader, interviewer, script writer and 4 Roma people) visit small villages, because the cities are quite difficult to do research in, from house to house, looking for elderly people who were deported. Majority of the interviews are held in Romani language and then they are translate into French and what makes the research special is that most survivors speak for the first time.
The result is 360 testimonies from Romani survivors who speak for the first time and what makes their testimony very valuable, because they can provide more and new information about the Roma genocide.
This research trip lasted 5 full days in which Anabel has accessed to 37 interviews from Roma survivors from 6 countries: Russia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Ukraine. Thanks to Mr. Marco González, executive director of the organisation, and to Mr. Michal Chojak, director of the Research Centre, for hosting Anabel (our team member, colleague) and supporting her research. The trip also served to establish new connections and dialogue and to search for possible future collaborations.
The organisation granted Anabel with two important books about the Roma genocide. The first one is “Territories of extermination in Eastern Europe (1941 – 1944) reviewed by Yahad – In Unum and Roma Dignity and published by Études Tsiganes and the second one “Roma Memory – Porrajmos” created by Yahad – In Unum in collaboration with Roma Dignity.
Annabel Carballo