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Catalan gypsies pay tribute to Auschwitz's Romani victims on the 70th anniversary of the genocide

August 6, 2014 06:50 PM | ACN / Neringa Sinkeviciute

Sixty Catalans travelled to Poland to honour the victims of the Romani genocide in Auschwitz concentration camp which coincides with the 70th anniversary of the horrific crime. The delegation consisted of members of the Federation of Gypsy Associations of Catalonia (FAGIC), the Nakeramos Intercultural Association, formed by young people from Barcelona, and the women's group, Veus Gitanes. The five-day commemoration was organised by the International Roma Youth Network, ternYpe, which remembered that on the night of the 2nd to the 3rd  of August 1944, the Nazi regime killed 2,897 Romani people in the so-called ‘Gypsy Family Camp’ in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Conferences, thematic history workshops and meetings with Roma survivors from the death camps were held on the 2nd of August to pay tribute to the Roma Genocide victims at a ceremony in Auschwitz. Delegations from 20 other countries gathered to attend the commemorative events.

Entrance to Montjuïc Castle and exhibitions now costs €5

March 3, 2014 08:49 PM | ACN

From this Monday onwards, visiting the fortress at the top of Barcelona’s Montjuïc hill will cost €5. Special discounts will be available as well as free admissions on special days, like the other museums in the city. Within Montjuïc Castle, history-related exhibitions will be held. Visitors can currently discover the exhibition ‘Postwar Barcelona’, organised by the City Council’s Archives with the collaboration of the Carles Pi i Sunyer Foundation. The exhibition starts with Franco’s troops entering the city on the 26th of January 1939 and finishes with the end of term of Fascist Mayor Miquel Mateu i Pla in 1945. In fact, it is a time travel back to post Civil War Barcelona, displaying more than 250 documents, including illustrations and photos, as well as historical texts and articles.

Project to honour thousands of Jews who braved Catalan Pyrenees to escape Holocaust

February 12, 2014 11:57 AM | ACN / Ben Ramage / Marta Lluvich

The project ‘Persecuted and Saved’ will tell the story of how 80,000 WW2 refugees escaped persecution and death through the Pyrenees mountains into Catalonia. The Israel Ambassador in Spain, Alon Bar, and the CEO of EL-AL - the main Israeli airline, Walter Wasercier, have already taken a key interest in the project, aiming to promote the history of the 20,000 Jews that used the mountains to escape from the Holocaust and obtain their freedom. The project is based in the Province of Lleida, in western Catalonia, around various historical sites, including refugee camps and mountain pathways used by fleeing refugees.

The Spanish Government's Delegate in Catalonia pays tribute to Hitler's soldiers

May 17, 2013 01:16 AM | CNA

María de los Llanos de Luna, from the People’s Party (PP), gave a diploma to a brotherhood of the ‘Divisón Azul’, a division of Spanish volunteers who fought in the Nazi army during the Second World War. De Luna is the top representative of the Spanish Government in Catalonia and she is known for her Spanish nationalism and anti-Catalan identity stance. The news has outraged the rest of the Catalan political parties, who have asked for her immediate resignation. Furthermore, the 12 members of the brotherhood which received the diploma were wearing the Falange uniform, which was the only party allowed during Franco’s Fascist dictatorship. Neither the PP nor the Spanish Government have commented on the news or the resignation demands.