On Wednesday, 4 March 2026, beginning at 12:15 p.m. at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek (Small Council Hall, room 39), Danijel Vojak, PhD (Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar) will deliver a guest lecture entitled Samudaripen in the Independent State of Croatia, 1941–1945. The lecture will be followed by a screening of the documentary film The Memory That Survived: Samudaripen in the Independent State of Croatia.
ABOUT THE LECTURE:
The Roma population settled in the Croatian lands no later than the second half of the 14th century. In the centuries that followed, they were subjected to policies of anti-Roma racism and discrimination aimed at their forced assimilation into Croatian society. Such repressive policies were widespread in most other European countries and reached their peak immediately before and during the Second World War, when the Nazi authorities and their allied countries sought to implement a genocidal policy aimed at the extermination of the Roma. After the war, the culture of remembrance surrounding their suffering was marginalised, as reflected in the insufficient interest of the academic community in researching this topic. It is precisely this attitude towards the genocidal persecution of the Roma that provides the impetus for this lecture. Particular emphasis will be placed on the individual experience of genocidal persecution through the example of Milan Đurđević, a Roma man from the Bjelovar area. The second example discussed during the lecture concerns the mass crime committed by Ustasha military units against around forty Sinti in the village of Hrastina during the final days of the war.
ABOUT THE LECTURER:
Danijel Vojak has worked as a Senior Research Adviser at the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar in Zagreb since 2008. He received his PhD in History (2011) from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, where he also earned his master’s degree (2006) and undergraduate degree (2003) in the same field. He is a member of several professional associations and, since 2023, a member of the Croatian delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. His research focuses on the history of the Roma in the Croatian lands, particularly in the 20th century. He has published several works on the history of the Roma during the First and Second World Wars. He has published approximately three hundred scholarly and professional papers in international and Croatian academic publications. He is also the author of educational publications on the history of the genocide of the Roma during the Second World War. He has participated in numerous Croatian and international research projects related to Roma history and has authored several exhibitions on the history of the Roma during the Second World War. He has taken part in around one hundred international and Croatian scientific conferences. In addition to Roma history, he also researches the local history of northwestern Croatia.
Danijel Vojak, PhD
ABOUT THE DOCUMENTARY FILM:
The documentary film The Memory That Survived: Samudaripen in the Independent State of Croatia follows a young Roma woman, Mihaela Đurđević, as she explores the persecution of the Roma during the Second World War in the territory of the Independent State of Croatia through her own family history. Starting from memories preserved within her family, Mihaela seeks to understand how persecution and violence shaped the lives of many Roma, including her own ancestors. The film interweaves personal testimonies, archival materials and interviews to present the broader historical context of the genocide of the Roma and the reasons why this topic remained insufficiently visible in the public sphere for so long. Particular emphasis is placed on the importance of remembrance, commemoration and education, with the message that the victims must not be forgotten. The film was produced as part of the Youth Empowerment through History project (project coordinator for Croatia: Danijel Velić, Roma Association in the Republic of Croatia “KALI SARA”).
Scene from the film