Romane Thana

An exhibition in cooperation with Romano Centro, the Minorities Initiative and the Regional Museum of Burgenland.

The focus of the exhibition is on places in Vienna and in the Province of Burgenland where Roma and Sinti have lived and/or are living today. This includes Roma settlements in Burgenland originally founded in the 18th century, traditional places in Vienna, but also places that bring to mind the long history of persecution and the Nazi genocide, such as Lackenbach, Auschwitz and Łódź.

The exhibition aims at educating visitors about widespread stereotypes (non-sedentary lifestyle, begging, ...) and about the long history of persecution. It is estimated that about 90 per cent of Austrian Roma and Sinti were killed in concentration and extermination camps under Nazi rule, with the active participation of local authorities. When the few survivors returned to their home places, they were confronted not only with the fact that their settlements had been wiped out, but also with renewed racist prejudice. For many of them, official recognition of their victim status came very late, not least because of persistent discrimination by law and by government authorities. Ironically, this part of the history of Roma and Sinti is well documented precisely because they were under close surveillance by policy-makers and administrators. Legal texts, photos taken by police and Gestapo officers, anthropometric data measured in the interests of Nazi "race hygiene", and the cynical rejection of applications for victim benefits form an impressive body of evidence.

Another, quite different perspective on Roma and Sinti emerged in conjunction with 19th-century exoticism, which gave rise to stereotypical imagery in various media and genres depicting their supposedly free lifestyle, erotic appeal and musicality.

Leaving aside these dominant attributions – both the openly hostile and the exoticising – the exhibition is an attempt to discuss the question of "normality" and to find and showcase stories about successful integration and social acceptance, drawing on information provided by Roma and Sinti themselves.

Self-organisation became an important issue for the Roma and Sinti community in the 1980s, resulting in its recognition as an ethnic group in 1993. These were also the years when remembrance of the Nazi genocide of Roma and Sinti intensified, with large sectors of the Austrian public becoming aware of it for the first time. With their literary and artistic works, Ceija and Karl Stojka were influential trailblazers in this movement. Despite – or possibly because of – its growing self-assurance, the Roma and Sinti community became a target of racist terrorism in 1995, when four men from the Roma settlement at Oberwart were killed in a pipe bomb attack on 4 February.

An exhibition such as this carries the risk of perpetuating stereotypes and favouring trite commonplaces over original thought. This is why members of the Roma and Sinti community have been on the exhibition team from the start. Moreover, the presentation relies heavily on the community's own contributions, reflecting the fact that integration can succeed only on the basis of self-assurance.

The online adaptation of the exhibition can be found here:
http://www.romane-thana.at/index.php

Curators:
Andrea Härle (Romano Centro), Cornelia Kogoj (Initiative Minderheiten), Werner Michael Schwarz (Wien Museum), Susanne Winkler (Wien Museum) und Michael Weese (Landesmuseum Burgenland)

Documentary and artistic contributions:
Gerhard Baumgartner, Usnija Buligović, Barka Emini, Robert Gabris,

Lilly Habelsberger, Gilda Horvath, Manuela Horvath, Stefan Horvath, Willi Horvath, Rabie Perić, Žaklina Radosavljević, Marius Weigl, Manuel Weinrich,

Tamara Weinrich

Exhibition architecture:
Alexander Kubik

Exhibition graphics:

Olaf Osten