Fighting for Roma rights and remembrance

As only the eighth-largest ethnic group in Latvia and with an official population of around 8,000 people (unofficial estimates put the number slightly higher), Latvia's Roma are often overlooked in discussions about ethnicity.

Two young Roma are looking to change that.

"It is hard to explain why the Roma community wants the government to give the Roma community more opportunities, but we feel that they just aren't doing enough," said Vanda Zamicka.

Zamicka, who runs We Are Roma, an NGO aimed at helping young Roma find funding for educational and cultural projects, says that Roma in Latvia often face discrimination.

"When I was going to law school, I needed help paying for my studies," said Zamicka, who is now a lawyer with a civil rights advocacy group in Riga. "I applied to the Soros Foundation in Switzerland, but they told me it would be easier to apply to the Soros Foundation here in Latvia. I did, and I got the money that I needed, but then I saw a copy of a fax that had been sent from the Latvian branch to the Swiss headquarters, and on it someone had written "Why does this gypsy girl have to study at our university?"

Dainis Krauklis, a 22-year-old student, believes that the stereotypes that people in Latvia have about Roma are deeply rooted.

"It's a fact that most people in this society have their stereotypes about the Roma and for the most part, they are negative," said Krauklis.

He said those stereotypes include being lazy, jobless and having criminal tendencies.

"Ten or 15 years ago it wasn't as important for people to get an education because they knew that they would get a job no matter what," said Krauklis. "When the old system ended, though, many Roma found that they were unable to get work without having an education. Unable to find work, many people have to turn to crime in order to get by."

Krauklis hopes to earn one of seven or eight full scholarships given out to study music at Latvia's Music Academy. But when he is not practicing his singing, he is compiling stories for a book that he is writing about famous Roma.

"Johans Trolmans was a Roma boxer who fought the German champion Adolph Vits in 1933," Krauklis explained. "He clearly won the fight, but the judges only called it a draw. The German crowd got angry and they threatened to blow up the boxing hall.

"He was given the championship, but eight days later the title was taken away from him because he was Roma, which finished his career. He was shot by Nazi SS troops in 1943 in the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg."

In addition to the book, Krauklis is trying to enlist the help of the Latvian government to erect a monument to the Roma who died in the Holocaust.

More than 2,000 Roma in Latvia were victims of the Holocaust, and Krauklis believes they deserve remembering.

"It doesn't have to be a large monument on the scale of the Freedom Monument," said Krauklis. "I just think that there should be some place where Latvia's Roma can go to lay flower in remembrance of those who died."

Krauklis tried to enlist the help of the Latvian Culture Ministry to help him get the monument erected, but he says they sent him a letter stating that, "Once you write the book (about famous Roma), that will be like a theoretical monument, and you won't need a real one."