Oral history - The National Center for Roma Culture
Extent and Medium
The oral archive contains interviews recorded on various audiovisual formats
Biographical History
The interviews were conducted starting in 2007 as part of several oral history projects conducted by different Roma NGOs Roma NGOs such as Asociația Centrul Rromilor „Amare Rromentza” and Centrul de Cercetari Culturale si Sociale "Romane Rodimata". These Roma NGOs were quite active a few years ago, but to this day they do not have an active website.
Scope and Content
The collection includes about 60 oral history interviews which relate to the Roma deportations to Transnistria. Between 2007 and 2019, various Roma activists, such as Delia Grigore and Adrian Furtuna, interviewed about 60 Roma survivors of deportations in Transnistria. The interviews were conducted as part of various projects and under the umbrella of several Roma organizations. Most of the interviews were conducted by the "Romane Rodimata" and Amare Romentza (two Roma NGOs based in Bucharest). However, in recent years the activity of the National Center for Roma Culture (CNCR) has become much more visible. The latter is a public institution under the National Agency for Roma and coordinated by the General Secretariat of the Romanian Government. The National Center for Roma Culture has the task of preserving, developing and promoting the cultural heritage of the Roma. By funding various Roma cultural activities, it has been able to attract collaborators of older projects, including those dealing with oral history. CNCR-RK therefore serves as an interface that brings together also these Roma projects on oral history.
Conditions Governing Access
None of these various Roma entities’s websites offer details on the interviews (length, locations, survivors’ names or age etc). However, thanks to the financial support of the CNCR, most of these interviews have already been used, either in the form of books and studies or in the form of documentaries or even docudramas. These books and documentaries are also available on the platform www.iKultura.ro initiated by CNCR. • https://ikultura.ro/category/biblioteca/ • https://ikultura.ro/category/filme-culturale-educationale/ • https://cncr.gov.ro/ • https://cncr.gov.ro/category/istoria-romilor/