Since 2010 every 2nd of August a group of young Roma and non Roma come together in the Extermination Camp of Auchwitz Birkenau to commemorate the Roma Genocide Memorial Day.
This initiative organised by TernYpe an International Roma Youth Network, is a space of learning about the past through a dialogue and personal encounter between young people and Roma survivors. The voices of the testimonies inspire young Roma to address and resist against antigypsyism, to learn about their own history (Roma history) in order to restore dignity and to strengthen the identity-building of young Roma.
Dikh He Na Bister is not only the commemoration event on 2nd of August in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but also a non-formal training which takes place every year during a week in Krakow in which youngsters learns about the Holocaust, antigypsyism and human rights. Remembrance and commemoration activities linked to the initiative are also taking place in local places around Europe.
This year, our colleague Anabel Carballo was a facilitator of the 2021 edition. She experienced the importance of the testimonies as tool of empowerment to young people to write their own history and an important tool of learning. The message given by the Roma survivors to Roma youngsters is so powerful and inspirational/encouragement, because it creates a connection between the past and the present through the language of the emotions, as Maria Sierra refers in her book “The Roma genocide under the Nazism”.
For her, Dikh He Na Bister is more that an encounter among young people to learn about the past, it is about transmitting the legacy, the Roma collective memory of the genocide, to the youth. It is about “using” individual memories in the construction of a common narrative that reinforces group identity.
