“The threat of deportation and the gas chambers is encoded in every expression of intolerance towards the Roma and in every anti-Semitic remark. Education and knowledge of history, going hand in hand with humanity and a certain predisposition to sympathetic fellow-feeling, will hopefully enable us to recognize the seeds of old dangers renewed and to shackle the demons of hatred and evil before they can gain possession of us once more.” (Václav Havel, 1999) Requiem for Auschwitz, the work of the Dutch-Sinto-Roma composer Roger “Moreno” Rathgeb, commemorates the victims of the Holocaust while drawing particular attention to a neglected aspect of the Nazi genocide: the extermination of half a million Roma. At the initiative of the Netherlands-based Alfa Foundation / International Gipsy Festival in Tilburg, Requiem for Auschwitz will be performed in Budapest, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Warsaw and Bucharest. In tandem with the concert, the Romedia Foundation – organizer of the Budapest event – also plans an exhibition and a film festival, as well as an educational programme and a heavily publicized conference in cooperation with the Krétakör Foundation. The Requiem concerts and other programmes are supported – among others – by the European Commission and the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (ITF).

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