Monthly Archives: August 2014

France News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

01.08.2014 Montpellier: integration village will not be realised

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Dubault (2014) reports on the status of the planned Rroma integration village in Montpellier. Hélène Mandroux,  the reigning socialist mayor of the city until the spring 2014, had initiated the project together with her assistant. The integration village would have cost around 2 million Euros: 20 motivated families, especially willing to integrate themselves would have been selected and been actively supported in their search for work, in improving their language skills, in their children’s education, and in the integration into the community. The newly elected mayor Philippe Saurel and the local council of Montpellier who were voted in the spring of 2014 have shut the project down. The costs are too high, the hoped-for success of the project too uncertain, they stated. Dubault states that stopping the project didn’t cause too much consternation among the collective in support of the Rroma. Most of the other integration projects in the Paris region were also characterised by failure, she concludes. These pessimistic estimates are contradicted by success stories like those of Indre (Loire-Atlantique), which was able to announce almost exclusively positive assessments of its integration project (compare Barbier 2014 Mouillard 2014 I/II). Aid agencies have accused the authorities and politics of deliberately not wanting to promote the integration of the immigrant Rroma, but rather wanting to deport them. In the French media and the French public, one never hears of the estimated 100,000 to 500,000 Rroma living in an integrated fashion, who form part of French society since generations and contribute to it. They are present examples that integration is possible.

News Eastern Europe News Western Europe Poland

01.08.2014 Holocaust: “the saver in the long skirt”

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In an impressive article Hreczuk (2014) reports on the fate of the Romni Alfreda Markowska (Noncia) and of more than 50 men and women who owe her their lives. The reason for the article is the 70th day of remembrance of the evacuation of the Gypsy camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The systematic mass murder in the Gypsy camp cost nearly 20,000 people their lives. Markowska, whose entire family was murdered by the Nazis, worked with her husband for the Todt organisation who installed railway tracks in the occupied territories: “When somebody told Noncia about a group of Roma who was killed in a nearby forest, all her terrible memories came back. “When she heard that she went there immediately”, says Parno [one of the rescued]. In the remains of the camp in the woods, Noncia finds a child. It is her first. […] On that day, Noncia decides to rebuild her large family. Within a radius of 100 kilometres, she goes everywhere where the Nazis have murdered. She smuggles children out from the trains. She never gets discovered. “Nationality did not matter to Noncia”, says Parno. Some time later, when Noncia and her husband moved behind the front to the west, as far as Gorzow, they also took lost children from there. German children. […] Noncia is now almost 90 years old and too sick to receive unknown visitors. In 2006, she received the second highest civilian honour of Poland, the Polonia Restituta with a star. But she never received compensation for her persecution. Her little pension is barely enough for life and for pharmaceuticals.” This memorable article shows the importance of civil courage and action against the passive acceptance of prevailing circumstances.

Bulgaria Germany News Eastern Europe News Western Europe North Macedonia Romania

01.08.2014 Halle: alliance against right refutes prejudices against Rroma

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In response to racist abuse against Rroma on the street and on the Internet in Halle (Silverhöhe), the “alliance against the right” has issued a statement in which it refutes the racist prejudices against Rroma and gives context around the the xenophobic slogans: “Apparently, for quite some time now there were prejudices against several Roma families who rented apartments in Silberhöhe. In the Facebook group, anti-Roma prejudices are connected with inhuman comments and calls for violence. The spraying of anti-Roma and Nazi slogans and symbols in Silberhöhe in the night of July 18th, 2014, we see as a direct result of the coverage of the Facebook group” (Halle Spektrum 2014). A detailed refutation of the common stereotypes about Rroma and “poverty immigrants”, with whom the minority is often mistakenly equated follows: Rroma are not more criminal than other ethnic groups. The authorities have experienced no increase in crime, as members of the demagogic Facebook group claimed. Most children of Rroma immigrants go to school and are required to do so by German law. The prejudice of not wanting education is therefore also not true. Another racist stereotype is the accusation that Rroma only migrate to Germany to exploit social benefits and that the majority does not work. This prejudice is also refuted by critical studies: to receive social funds one has to provide evidence of previous work and of payments to social security. One is not automatically entitled to social benefits. In addition, there are also many well-qualified immigrants who are members of the middle class or even the upper class. Mistakenly, it is always assumed that immigrants from Eastern Europe are only Rroma: but there also are many ethnic Bulgarians, Romanians, Macedonians, Serbs, etc. Rroma constitute only a minority in these countries (Halle Spektrum 2014 I/II). An estimated 110,000 to 130,000 Rroma live in Germany. The vast majority of them is integrated, has a steady job, pays taxes and lives in Germany since several generations.

News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

01.08.2014 Baden-Württemberg: demand for a realistic Rroma image in schools

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Several German local newspapers report on the meetings of the council for the affairs of German Sinti and Roma in Baden-Württemberg. After a first meeting, the expert group stated that it wishes a realistic depiction of the Sinti and Roma in Baden-Württemberg’s schools. So far, the students were mainly taught clichés but not a critical, realistic picture of this minority: “[Daniel] Strauss criticised that the stereotypical image of the “Gypsy” is still widely used. If Sinti and Roma are at all a topic in lessons, they are often depicted as victims. Although there are many creative people [among them], not all of them out themselves as members of this minority. In addition, the future of the graves of Sinti and Roma who survived National Socialism was a central point of the discussion. The council agreed to maintain these graves in the long run. Their number in Baden-Württemberg is estimated at about 300” (Südwest Press 2014/I, compare Die Welt 2014, Südwest Presse 2014/II, SWR 2014). The predominantly pejorative stereotypes that ascribe the Rroma a culturally based delinquency and with hierarchical clans, are a projection on the minority of alleged knowledge that has prevailed the media and the public as the dominant narrative about the Rroma. However, these stereotypes are largely wrong. Rroma are not more criminal than other ethnic groups, many are well educated, settled and belong to the middle class.

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