Key Points

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros was awarded the 2025 European Civil Rights Prize of the Sinti and Roma in Berlin on Tuesday, 23 October 2025 for his “decades-long commitment to advancing the rights, dignity, and empowerment of Roma communities across Europe.”

The award is conferred to “individuals, groups or institutions primarily from the majority, who face up to the historical responsibility and have been exemplary in calling for an improvement in the human rights situation.” It aims to assert and protect the civil rights, equal status, and integration into all spheres of public life of the Sinti and Roma people in their countries of residence.

The award was founded in 2007 by the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma (DCCGSR), and endowed by the Manfred Lautenschläger Foundation, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the DCCGSR. Since 2019, it has been presented in memory of Holocaust survivors and pioneers of Germany’s Roma civil rights movement Oskar and Vinzenz Rose. The recipient is awarded €15,000 for their contribution.

The prize was accepted on Soros’ behalf by his son Alex, saying, “My father’s partnership with Roma communities has always been grounded in a deep belief in justice, dignity, and self-determination. This prize is a powerful recognition of that shared journey—and a call to continue the fight against prejudice and exclusion.”

George Soros later issued his own statement: “The Roma have endured centuries of discrimination and marginalization, rooted in a long history of violence—from the Holocaust to forced sterilization, child removals, and evictions. These injustices continue to resurface, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, when Roma fleeing the war in Ukraine faced barriers to shelter and aid. I’ve always believed that open societies must protect the rights of all people—especially those who are excluded. Working alongside Roma leaders and communities has been one of the most meaningful parts of my life’s work.”

George Soros and his Support of the Roma People

George Soros is a Hungarian-American philanthropist with a net worth of $7.2 billion as of May 2025, putting him amongst the top 500 wealthiest individuals in the world. He is the founder of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), a grant making organization that financially supports “groups and individuals that work on issues we focus on—promoting justice, equity, and human rights.”

Soros has donated $32 billion – 64% of his original fortune – to fund the OSF, which is the largest private funder of civil society groups worldwide. He supports progressive and liberal political causes and humanitarian efforts around the globe.

Now 95-years-old, Soros has been funding political causes since 1979, when he began by providing scholarships to Black South African students living under apartheid. His efforts have been informed by his own experience of living through the Holocaust as a Jew. “My success in the financial markets has given me a greater degree of independence than most other people,” Soros has said about his work.

In the 1980s he funded academics and independent organisations in Communist Hungary. He eventually expanded his activities to Africa, Asia, and South and North America, promoting democratic movements and activist efforts. He was a vocal critic of the US ‘war on drugs’ and its ‘war on terror’. He has hit out against the refugee crisis in Europe. He has highlighted the threat China poses as the “the wealthiest, strongest and technologically most advanced” authoritarian regime in the world. He has publicly condemned Israel’s Zionist foundations and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

See Also: History of Roma people’s flag

But over a lifetime of philanthropy, one of Soros’ most consistent causes has been his advocacy for the Roma community.

His efforts have spanned social, education, economic, and democratic empowerment of the community. He has established the European Roma Rights Centre, the Roma Education Fund, the Decade of Roma Inclusion, and the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture. More recently, in 2022, Soros launched the Roma Entrepreneurship Development Initiative to support Roma entrepreneurs. Finally, in 2024, the OSF helped establish the Roma Foundation for Europe, granting it a €100 million pledge.

Soros has also collaborated with several government and international bodies to further his concrete initiatives in support of the community.

By funding education programs, he has helped around 150,000 Roma students attend school and challenged segregationist policies implemented against Roma children. He has litigated for Roma rights in national and international courts. He has also fought for healthcare access and representation of the community in democratic processes.

After winning the European Civil Rights Prize of the Sinti and Roma, he pledged the prize money to the Roma Education Fund.

The Roma Community

The Roma community, or Romani People, are a traditionally nomadic ethnic group spread mainly across Europe, but with populations in other countries as well like the US, Brazil, Canada, etc. Sinti people are a sub-group of the Roma community. They are more commonly known as Gypsies, though this term has become contentious in recent times. There are an estimated 4-14 million Romani people living worldwide.

They are of Indo-Aryan ancestry, with genetic and linguistic traces back to Northwestern and Central India, and Dravidian heritage. Though the community has no written or oral history outlining their origin, they are thought to have migrated out of the subcontinent as a small group sometime between the 5th and 11th centuries, with a second wave migrating between the 7th and 14th centuries.

The community migrated through Western Asia up into the Balkans, from where they spread across Europe. The community claimed no national identity. The Romani language has a proto-Indo-Aryan foundation, with influences of Persian, Slavic, Byzantine Greek, and Armenian, likely picked up along the migration.

Romani culture, especially religious inclinations, adapted to the empires under which the community lived at different times, most prominently the Ottoman and Byzantine empires. Their social system, however, still reflects influences of the Indian caste system with concepts like purity and exclusion taking precedence.

As a nomadic group with no national identity, mixed ethnic ancestry, and exclusionary, in-group practices, the Roma people have long been persecuted by European society.

The community was long targeted by slave traders as early as the Middle Ages. As European imperialism began to develop, many individuals were shipped off to colonies like the US. Later, they faced racial discrimination for their heritage, customs and lifestyle, often facing exclusion and becoming scapegoats during times of conflict. Other times, they were forced to assimilate into the dominant cultures of the time and region – this is why the most common religions in the Roma community are Christianity and Islam – with their own practices being outlawed in the process.

In contemporary history, discrimination against Romani people became more systematic: children were forced into special segregated schools and classified as ‘mentally disturbed’, mass-scale sterilization efforts were undertaken against local communities in certain areas, and populations were either forcibly removed or restricted from immigration.

The most distinct atrocity faced by the community was the ‘Porajmos’, or the Romani Holocaust. In Nazi Germany, the Roma people were stripped of their citizenship and imprisoned in concentration camps. Then, in 1942, the Romani genocide began, killing anywhere between 200,000 and 4 million people.

Romani people continue to be discriminated against even today, with the community bearing markers of extended persecution. The Roma suffer from high rates of poverty, crime, mental illness, and anti-social behaviour, and low access to education, healthcare, housing, and employment.

It’s amidst this context that George Soros’ efforts to uplift the Roma community appear as pertinent and imperative as ever. [Rh]

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