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'Fascism begins with words, stereotypes, indifference', says European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture
Minorities say they fear a rise in anti-Roma rhetoric following predictions of Germany’s AfD surge in Sunday’s Saxony-Anhalt election.
As Germany heads into a closely watched state election in Saxony-Anhalt this Sunday, 6 September, with the AfD polling above 40% and potentially within reach of an outright majority, right groups say they are “growing concerns over what its increasing electoral strength means for minorities and Germany’s and the EU’s democratic norms and values.”
Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka, Executive Director of the Berlin-based European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture, looks ahead to the election.
She told this site: “For Roma and Sinti communities in particular, the election comes against a backdrop of increasingly visible anti-Roma racism.”
The Central Council of German Sinti and Roma described the situation “as a cynical example of a far-right party once again targeting Sinti and Roma.”
The incident, says the institute, comes amid "growing evidence of antigypsyism in Germany."
The Institute says that MIA, the country’s reporting and information centre documenting anti-Roma racism, reportedly recorded 1,193 cases of stereotyping and disparaging remarks targeting Roma and Sinti in 2025, as well as 55 physical attacks, up from the previous year, and eight cases of extreme violence.
The institute says Roma experts warn of a changing political landscape in Germany and the growing strength of the far right.
They note that “the normalisation of nationalist, racist and anti-minority rhetoric is reshaping political discourse, including the increasing use of anti-Roma stereotypes.”
Mirga-Kruszelnicka said: “Over 80 years since more than 4,300 Roma and Sinti were murdered during the liquidation of the “Zigeunerlager” at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, a far-right party that openly stigmatises and singles out Roma citizens is yet again on the rise in Germany. In April 2026, AfD politician Enxhi Seli-Zacharias led party colleagues through a German city, handing brooms to residents she took to be Sinti and Roma and filming them as they swept the pavement, telling one woman: “Germans have had enough—look what this looks like.”
As the EU prepares its next €2 trillion budget, the institute says experts are also questioning whether Roma communities are "being adequately accounted" for in how European funding is tracked and measured with”, says the insititute, “antigypsyism not mentioned once in the Performance Framework Regulation".
“Fascism is never simply a chapter in history books. It begins with words, stereotypes, indifference and the gradual erosion of democratic values. Honouring those who were murdered is not enough. We must also recognise how quickly democratic societies can unravel when prejudice, dehumanisation and political extremism become accepted as ordinary," concluded Mirga-Kruszelnicka.
