Between 15 January 1941 and 25 November 1942, French authorities interned 1334 Romani men, women and children in the Rivesaltes camp (South France). The Memorial recently opened on the site camp pays tribute to them through a new temporary exhibition, Roma Memory, on the history of Roma culture, persecution and genocide in the 20th and 21st centuries.

In our research project, exploring Romani contributions to EU public space, with a focus on markets and fairs in the UK and in Germany in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, we find Romani and non Romani actors caught up in events that are embedded in, or lead up to, world wars, changes in economies, industries, and urban and rural societies, and with this documents and occurrences that are at once distant from and reflective of contemporary issues and actions.

Here at the University of Liverpool we’ve been busy researching our Markets and Fairs case study. Our focus falls on the everyday social and economic activities and interactions between Romani and non Romani people at horse fairs in the UK and in Germany.

Spanish Team is happily busy in these months. Since July, we have been working in different archives and documentation centres trying to follow the traces of the Romani figures we seek to know better: Helios Gómez, Sandra Jayat and Ronald Lee, among others.