Anita Awosusi: Difference between revisions

Anita Awosusi (born 1956) is a German writer, musician, documentary filmmaker and civil rights activist. Herself a Sinti woman, she has been active in campaigns for the rights of the Sinti and Romani people.

Awosusi was born in 1956. She left primary school after five years.^[1] Her parents are survivors of the genocide of Sinti and Romani people under Nazi rule in Europe. Since the mid-1980s, Awosusi has been campaigning for the rights of the Sinti and Romani. Since the 1990s, she has been publishing as an author on the culture of remembrance of the Romani Holocaust, on the music and stereotyped representations of Sinti and Romani.^[2][3]

She was head of the Dialogue Department and a board member of the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Romani in Heidelberg. As part of this activity, she worked as a political educator on the politics of remembrance of the Romani Holocaust for young people.^[4][5][6]

As a musician, she created the music and poetry project Rom Som – Ich bin ein Mensch – Lyrik und Lieder der Sinti und Romani together with the violinist Romeo Franz and other female musicians.  Anita Awosusi recites (traditional) lamentations and lyrical texts about the persecution of Romani and Sinti during Nazi rule.

Her husband is the Nigerian-born engineer Hope Awosusi, who plays in his spare time as a jazz guitarist in the Awosusi Quintet, a jazz-funk-soul band from Karlsruhe, their daughter is the R'n'B singer Tayo Awosusi.

In 1996, Awosusi, Michail Krausnick and Romani Rose received the Civis Television Prize for special programme achievements for their documentary film Auf Wiedersehen im Himmel – Die Kinder von der St. Josefspflege, produced for German public TV.

• Vater unser. Eine Sintifamilie erzählt. Heidelberg: Verlag Regionalkultur, 2016, ISBN 978-3-89735-969-7.^[7]
• Anita Awosusi, Andreas Pflock: Sinti und Roma im KZ Natzweiler-Struthof – Anregungen für einen Gedenkstättenbesuch – Geschichte, Rundgang, Biografien, Informationen. Dokumentations- und Kulturzentrum. Deutsche Sinti und Roma, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 978-3-929446-19-7.
• Anita Awosusi, Andreas Pflock: Den Opfern ein Gesicht geben – Historische Fotografien im Kontext der pädagogischen Arbeit des Dokumentations- und Kulturzentrums Deutscher Sinti und Roma, in: Silvio Peritore, Frank Reuter (Hrsg.): InszenIerung des Fremden. Fotografische Darstellung von Sinti und Roma im Kontext der historischen Bildforschung, Heidelberg 2011, pp. 263–279, ISBN 978-3-929446-28-9

• Anita Awosusi (ed.): Die Musik der Sinti und Roma (= Schriftenreihe des Dokumentations- und Kulturzentrums Deutscher Sinti und Roma), Heidelberg 1996–1998, 3 volumes:
  • Band I: Die ungarische „Zigeunermusik“, ISBN 3-929446-07-3.
  • Band II: Der Sinti-Jazz, ISBN 3-929446-09-X.
  • Band III: Der Flamenco, ISBN 3-929446-10-3.
• Anita Awosusi (ed.): Stichwort: Zigeuner – Zur Stigmatisierung von Sinti und Roma in Lexika und Enzyklopädien. Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 1998, ISBN 3-88423-141-3.
• Anita Awosusi (ed.): Zigeunerbilder in der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 3-88423-177-4.

• Rose, Romani (2001), Roth, John K.; Maxwell, Elisabeth; Levy, Margot; Whitworth, Wendy (eds.), "The Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma", Remembering for the Future, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 2556–2565, doi:10.1007/978-1-349-66019-3_180, ISBN 978-0-333-80486-5
• Jost, Steffen (2014). "Sinti and Roma in German Concentration Camps: Old Problems and New Perspectives on a Neglected Field". New Research on Roma and the Holocaust.
• Tebbutt, Susan (2003). "Between Distance and Proximity: Film Images and After-images of the Genocide of the Romanies". Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media. 44 (2): 72–80. ISSN 0306-7661.