Paul Polansky

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paul Polansky is an activist working for the rights of the Roma people (also called Gypsies). He has worked for the advancement of Roma and acceptance of them throughout Eastern Europe. Today he heads the Kosovo Roma Refugee Fund, an NGO working with the afflicted residents of the Roma in Mitrovica Camps. He is also head of mission for Society for Threatened Peoples in Kosovo and Serbia.

He has published a number of poetry books, including "The River Killed My Brother." His latest acclaimed book UN-Leaded Blood exposes the inaction of UNMIK, who have stood by while many children died from lead poisoning in the Kosovo UN camps. Other books by Polanksy included a novel, The Storm, and a collection of oral histories of Czech Roma Holocaust survivors, called Black Silence.

On December 10, 2004, the City Council of Weimar unanimously awarded its prestigious Human Rights Award to Polansky. He was nominated for the award by Guenther Grass, recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize for Literature.

A documentary film, Gypsy Blood, produced by Polansky won best informative film at the 2005 Golden Wheel International Film Festival in Skopje, Macedonia.