Paul Polansky

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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.

Polansky has published fifteen books of poetry, including The River Killed My Brother. His latest book of poetry "Gypsy Taxi" was reviewed on BBC radio. Polansky's most controversial book UN-Leaded Blood described the inaction of UNMIK, as 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 "Human Rights Award" to Polansky. He was nominated for the award by Guenther Grass, recipient of the 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, Republic of Macedonia.

Polansky's latest book (2007) is volume 1 of three volumes of oral histories of the Yugoslav Gypsies before, during and after World War II. The collection is called One Blood, One Flame.