Anita Awosusi (born 1956) is a German writer, musician, documentary filmmaker andhuman rights activist. Herself aSinti woman, she has been active in campaigns for the rights of the Sinti andRomani people. Since the 1990s, she has published works on the history of theRomani Holocaust, on the music and onstereotyped representations of Sinti and Roma.

Awosusi was born a member of the Sinti ethnic group in 1956 and had to leave primary school after only five years.^[1] TheRomani and Sinti in Germany are among the biggest and the most discriminatedethnic groups.^[2] Her parents were survivors of thegenocide of Sinti and Romani people under the rule ofNational Socialism in Europe.^[3]

Since the mid-1980s, Awosusi has been campaigning for the rights of the Sinti and Romani.^[4][5] Among other activities, she was a board member of theDocumentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Romani inHeidelberg. As part of this activity, she worked as an outreach educator on the remembrance of the Romani Holocaust.^[6][3]

Awosusi authored and edited several publications about stereotyped representations of Sinti and Romani and the history of theirpersecution, both in language and in visual media such as photography. Further, she documentedRomani music ranging fromHungarian Romani music toSinti jazz andFlamenco in three volumes. As a musician, she created a show including music and poetry titledRom Som – Ich bin ein Mensch – Lyrik und Lieder der Sinti und Romani (Rom Som - I am a Human Being) with the violinist Romeo Franz and other musicians. During these performances, Awosusi recited lamentations and lyrical texts about the persecution of Romani people during Nazi rule.^[7]

In 2016, Awosusi published her autobiographyVater unser. Eine Sintifamilie erzählt (Our Father. A Sinti family tale). In this work, she wrote about her family’s experience during the Romani Holocaust as well as how thisstigmatisation has affected her own and her family's lives.^[8]

Awosusi's husband is the Nigerian-born engineer Hope Awosusi, who played as a jazz guitarist in theAwosusi Quintet, a jazz-funk-soul band fromKarlsruhe; their daughter is the singer and activistTayo Awosusi-Onutor.^[3]

In 1996, Awosusi, writer Michail Krausnick and activistRomani Rose received theCivis Media Prize for their documentary film about thedeportation of Sinti children toAuschwitz concentration camp titledAuf Wiedersehen im Himmel – Die Kinder von der St. Josefspflege.^[9][10]

• Anita Awosusi, Andreas Pflock:Sinti und Roma im KZ Natzweiler-Struthof – Anregungen für einen Gedenkstättenbesuch – Geschichte, Rundgang, Biografien, Informationen. Dokumentations- und Kulturzentrum. Deutsche Sinti und Roma, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 978-3-929446-19-7.
• Anita Awosusi, Andreas Pflock:Den Opfern ein Gesicht geben – Historische Fotografien im Kontext der pädagogischen Arbeit des Dokumentations- und Kulturzentrums Deutscher Sinti und Roma, In: Silvio Peritore, Frank Reuter (eds.):InszenIerung des Fremden. Fotografische Darstellung von Sinti und Roma im Kontext der historischen Bildforschung, Heidelberg 2011, pp. 263–279, ISBN 978-3-929446-28-9
• Vater unser. Eine Sintifamilie erzählt. Heidelberg: Verlag Regionalkultur, 2016, ISBN 978-3-89735-969-7.

• Anita Awosusi (ed.):Die Musik der Sinti und Roma (=Schriftenreihe des Dokumentations- und Kulturzentrums Deutscher Sinti und Roma), Heidelberg 1996–1998, 3 volumes:
  • Band I:Die ungarische „Zigeunermusik“, ISBN 3-929446-07-3.
  • Band II:Der Sinti-Jazz, ISBN 3-929446-09-X.
  • Band III:Der Flamenco, ISBN 3-929446-10-3.
• Anita Awosusi (ed.):Stichwort: Zigeuner – Zur Stigmatisierung von Sinti und Roma in Lexika und Enzyklopädien. Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 1998, ISBN 3-88423-141-3.
• Anita Awosusi (ed.):Zigeunerbilder in der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 3-88423-177-4.

• History of the Romani people
• Romani society and culture

• Central Council of German Sinti and Roma
• European Civil Rights Prize of the Sinti and Roma

• Rose, Romani (2001), Roth, John K.; Maxwell, Elisabeth; Levy, Margot; Whitworth, Wendy (eds.),"The Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma",Remembering for the Future, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 2556–2565,doi:10.1007/978-1-349-66019-3_180,ISBN 978-0-333-80486-5
• Jost, Steffen (2014)."Sinti and Roma in German Concentration Camps: Old Problems and New Perspectives on a Neglected Field".New Research on Roma and the Holocaust.
• Tebbutt, Susan (2003)."Between Distance and Proximity: Film Images and After-images of the Genocide of the Romanies".Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media.44 (2):72–80.ISSN 0306-7661.

• European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC)
• Documentation Centre of Sinti and Roma in Germany

• Living people
• 1958 births
• German activists
• Romani activists
• German Romani people
• 20th-century German women writers
• 21st-century German women writers
• German Sinti people

• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles with hCards