Honored Persons

 

Rudolf Sarkösi

Rudolf Sarkösi (born November 11, 1944 in the detention camp Lackenbach, † March 12, 2016) as chairman of the Cultural Association of Austrian Roma was a representative of the Austrian Roma and Sinti. Rudolf Sarközi was born the son of a Burgenland Romni and a Viennese Sinto in the National Socialist "gypsy detention camp" Lackenbach. Due to poverty and racist exclusion, he was almost excluded from education. As a "Gypsy", he was not accepted as apprentice. He worked as an auxiliary worker in civil engineering and as a fitter at a water and heating installation company. In 1981, Sarközi was hired by the municipality of Vienna in the municipal fleet as a motorist. From Vienna, he initiated the merger of Burgenland Roma ("Roma Association"). In 1991, he founded the Cultural Association of Austrian Roma, whose chairman he was from then on. A petition by the two associations led to a resolution in Parliament which in December 1993 resulted in the recognition of a Roma minority. Since 1995 he had been chairman of the "Ethnic Groups Advisory Council" of the Austrian Roma minority in the Federal Chancellery. From 2001 to 2010 he was the first Roma to hold political office in Austria, in the district council in the 19th district of Vienna. On June 3, 1996, the Roma Documentation and Information Centre founded by Rudolf Sarközi was opened by Chancellor Franz Vranitzky, then Viennese Mayor Michael Häupl and then Federal President Thomas Klestil. Sarközi contributed to the permanent exhibition at the Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau. On November 24, 1996, the International Council for the Memory of the Annihilation of the Roma proclaimed August 2nd as the day of commemoration of the genocide of the European Roma. Since 1997, Sarkösi participated in the annual commemoration of the Council, which he also belonged to. In June 1995, he was one of the founders of the Roma Fund for the Improvement of the Educational Situation of the Austrian Roma, founded in response to the attac in Oberwart. For his commitment, Rudolf Sarkösi was honored with numerous golden decorations.