Goals and tasks:
Centering the voices and perspectives of those affected have not been part of the commemoration of the pogrom in Lichtenhagen over the past thirty years.Since 2022, building on a project by Roma Center (Göttingen), the Documentation Center Lichtenhagen im Gedächtnis (Lichtenhagen in Memory, Rostock) and Asociația Centrul de Cultură al Romilor Dolj (Craiova), a collaboration has been established between Rostock and survivors of the pogrom from Roma communities in southern Romania. As part of this, interviews with those affected have been published and events have been organised in Rostock.
The Romani community in Craiova, from which many of those affected by the pogrom in Lichtenhagen originate, continues to be affected by antiziganist discrimination and the resulting poverty and forced migration. Many of those affected by the pogrom are descendants of survivors of the Nazi genocide. Today, their children are migrating again, for example to the US, to escape the situation in Craiova. The pogrom in Lichtenhagen is part of this history of persecution.
Given the ongoing discrimination, the community in Craiova is organizing itself and making political demands. These include:
- Reparations for the families affected by the pogrom in Rostock-Lichtenhagen
- Educational scholarships for studies in Rostock for the families affected by the pogrom in Rostock-Lichtenhagen
- Cooperation between the cities of Rostock and Craiova at the administrative and political level
- Dialogue between those affected from Craiova and members of the Viet-German community in Rostock
- Inclusion in cultural and academic projects on the pogrom in Rostock-Lichtenhagen, and support for their own community