A film by Michelle Kelso. USA/Romania, 2005.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
James Bridges Theater
1409 Melnitz Hall
UCLA Campus
Los Angeles, CA 90095

Screening and discussion with Gabriel Troc, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania.

In Romania, over 25,000 Roma (Gypsies) were deported to camps in the occupied Soviet Union. Roma recount their horrendous experiences in the east where they fought to survive disease, brutality, and mass murder. Over half of those deported perished. Also covered in the film is wider European context of the Nazi-persecutions, including the deportation of Romanian Jews. Liberated in 1944, Roma returned to Romania to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.

For sixty years since the war ended, the Roma deportation was not acknowledged in history texts, and there are no monuments to commemorate their dead. Themes of justice and responsibility are broached as viewers watch survivors applying for humanitarian assistance funds established for East European survivors by Swiss and German funds in the late 1990s. Romania has yet to offer compensation to Roma for their sufferings and losses.

This film is part of the UCLA International Institute's International Human Rights Film Series. Learn more at www.international.ucla.edu/humanrights

Download file: International-Human-Rights-Film-Series-Poster.pdf

Sponsor(s): Center for European and Russian Studies, UCLA International Institute