Roma Caravan Memorial as an example of promotion of knowledge about Roma by the Ethnographic Museum in Tarnów

Abstract

The first Roma Caravan Memorial set off from outside the Ethnographic Museum in Tarnów in 1996. It was organised by Adam Bartosz, an expert on Roma culture, history and language, and Adam Andrasz, the president of the Association of Roma in Tarnów. The Caravan is to commemorate Roma Holocaust. Members of the Roma community can thus learn about the history of extermination from local priests and authors of historical publications. Participants of the Caravan visit the following places of martyrdom: Żabno where possibly 49 of German and 12 of Hungarian Romas were shot by the Nazis in summer 1943), the grave in Borzęcin Dolny where anonymous 28 Romas, killed in the nearby forests, were buried, and Szczurowa where Germans murdered almost an entire Roma settlement of 93 people; the victims were buried in the local cemetery; it is probably the biggest grave of Roma people on the present territory of Poland. The Caravan Memorial is a project that integrates the Roma and the local community, also friendly villagers, journalists and sometimes passers-by join it.