Roma Media Archive

The aftermaths of the holocaust affect the second and third generations - daughters, sons, grandchildren, who have to live with the fact that their families were killed in the concentration camps. The documentary Eine lästige Gesellschaft (An undesireable society) shows the painstaking search of director Marika Schmiedt for her relativess who were prosecuted during the National Socialism. The audience is included into her research, thus challenged to share the weight of the destructions so many Austrians have been involved in, if "only" by silence and passivity. The destructions live on today. The film documents how crucially the fascist ideology of the past constitutes the attitude of contemporary society. Stereotypes and clichees unvariably exist and influence the minds of the majority. At the age of 31, Amalia Horvath, a young woman, was murdered at the concentration camp Ravensbrück. She was killed like many other (Austrian) Roma and Sinti who were deported to the concentration camps immediately after Austria's „Anschluss“ to the national socialist German Reich.

Marika Schmiedt
Born in 1966. Artist, filmmaker, freelance researcher for the ethnic community of Roma and Sinti, and academic lecturer. Both her research and video works examine the history and traumatic legacy the National Socialist Holocaust of the Austrian Roma and Sinti, exploring the difficulties of dealing with the loss of family members and the impact of these losses on the second and third generations of European Roma. She lives and works in Vienna.