Daily Archives: août 6, 2014

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06.08.2014 Stereotypes: Rroma as child robbers

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Several British tabloids report on the fate of the Belarusian model Olga Romanovich. The beauty queen was allegedly kidnapped as a four year old from her birth mother in Moldova. The child robbers are termed as gypsies. From these, she was supposedly sold for a pair of gold earrings to another Rroma family that wished to have a daughter in addition to their son: “Her birth mother Tamara fled an abusive husband with Olga and was initially cared for at a railway station by gypsies who persuaded her to move from her home in Belarus to Moldova. She had to beg on the street with her daughter, before she was tricked into giving up her child during a car journey. They stopped at a shop, and gave her money to buy cigarettes, before driving off with her baby who was sold to another gypsy, who lived in the town of Soroki near the Ukrainian border. The woman who bought her had a son but wanted a daughter too, and “bought” Olga for a pair of golden earrings and a tiny sum of money, though she Olga was largely raised by this woman’s mother” (The Huffington Post 2014). The stereotype of Rroma as child robbers reaches back to their arrival in Western Europe. The prejudice is based on the idea that Rroma are deliberately anti-social living groups who steal their livelihood from the hard-working majority population and enrich themselves from them by illegal means. However, Rroma are not more criminal than other ethnic groups. Trafficking of children has nothing to do with the culture of the Rroma, as the articles cited here suggest. It is a racist prejudice that has been handed down for generations (compare Cockroft 2014, Hartley-Parkinson 2014, Metro News 2014, Stewart 2014).

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06.08.2014 Stereotypes: Rroma as patriarchal and misogynistic

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Mühlenschulte (2014) reports on a ten-day German-language course at the Wisseler lake in North Rhine-Westphalia, which was organised by the youth organization Lalok Libre. Among the 35 children aged 4 to 17 years, there were 30 Rroma children. The article tries to show integration efforts of recently immigrated Rroma families, but reproduces numerous negative stereotypes and prejudices by equating Rroma with alienation from education, high numbers of children, patriarchal structures, and with poverty. That a lack of education and high numbers of children are the result  of poverty, a phenomenon that exist independently of ethnicity, is not discussed. Therefore, a one-sided notion of Rroma as poverty immigrants is mediated and erroneously equates socioeconomic circumstances with culture: ““You have to respect women girls”, says Venetia Harontzas to two Roma boys. “The girls here must be like your sisters!” […] Worlds are said to collide at the Dresden street/corner Grillostraße, reports Harontzas. But also among the Roma there big differences, she states. The majority are cooperative. “Actually, these are kids like everyone else, they just grow up in another community”, the Lalok president states. In a society in which women are often only seen as breeding machines, and girls are getting their first child at the age of 14, their second at 16, and many more would follow. The Roma Matei Rostas confirms this. “A sensitive issue”, says Harontzas. Soon one wants to talk with the Roma families about contraception, which is often a foreign word to them, she states.” There are also many well-educated Rroma who do not conform to these stereotypes. Especially in Germany, where a majority of 110,000 to 130,000 Rroma have been living integrated for generations and are represented by the central council of German Sinti and Roma to the public. Unfortunately, they are almost never discussed in the media. Contraception has nothing to do with ethnicity, but is influenced by the level of education and sometimes by religious affiliation. In addition, notions of cultural traditions such as an early age of marriage or the role of women should be treated with caution, since they apply only to traditional Rroma and are subject to social changes. Therefore, Rromni often have considerable influence in their families, especially women after the menopause. The supremacy of men has more representative character than that real hierarchies would exist.

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06.08.2014 Memorial of the Rroma Holocaust

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Many international newspapers reportes about the mass murder of Rroma on the occasion of the 70th commemoration of the evacuation of the Gypsy camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. On August the second, 1944, the remaining 3000 inmates of the camp were killed. The inmates of the Gypsy camp actively resisted and barricaded themselves in the barracks. After the rebellion was put down, approximately 3000 of the 6000 Rroma were classified as capable of working and taken to other labour camps. The remaining 3000 – mostly children, women and old people – were gassed or shot. Previously, tens of thousands had already been deliberately starved to death or died of plagues and epidemics. The interior minister of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Reinhold Gall, pointed out in his speech that the Nazi atrocities would not have been possible without the opportune collaboration of the authorities and the police. It is therefore necessary to critically question this passive tolerance but also active support of fascism: “He pointed to the asylum decree of the ministry of the interior of Württemberg in November the 7th, 1938, which made it possible that children could be classified as “Gypsies” and interned into protectorates. “For too long, the authorities have not concerned themselves with their own history”, he said. Also Thomas Schnabel, director of the museum of contemporary history, pointed out the “fatal cooperation between police, interior ministries and the Gestapo.” For example, the police of Karlsruhe had gathered 150 Sinti and Roma in the courtyard of its bureau to bring them to the collection camp Hohenasperg, from where they were deported to Auschwitz” (Schmidt 2014). The chairman of the central council of German Sinti and Rroma, Romani Rose, emphasised in his speech at Auschwitz, under the presence of survivors and politicians, the worrying rise of right-wing nationalist and extreme right-wing parties and groups: “With great concern we see that right-wing extremist and violent parties and organisations in Europe are increasing and find an echo to their slogans into the mainstream of society” (Baltic Rundschau 2014). Roses indication of the missing lessons of history is of particular importance. Only through an insufficient remembrance of past atrocities against minorities such as the Roma can the renewed rise of racism against marginalized groups be explained. These tendencies are reinforced and fuelled by economic and social issues. At the commemoration, young Rroma from 25 European countries were present. The memory of the atrocities committed by the Nazis should not be forgotten and passed on to the younger generation. In his speech to the German Bundestag on January the 27th, 2011, Zoni Weisz called the genocide of the Rroma justifiably the “forgotten Holocaust”. Repression was rarely the right method to sort out a problem. West Germany only recognized the Rroma genocide in 1982,  at which time, many of the survivors had already died. The Holocaust of the Rroma is repeatedly falsely equated with the word Porrajmos, also in some of the articles cited here. The expression, which emanates from the verb porravav and means “to open widely”, is often used in the context of sexual activity and is therefore not appropriate to describe a genocide. Among the Rroma there is no recognized term to describe the Rroma Holocaust (compare ARD Tagesschau 2014, Deutsche Welle 2014, Gribben 2014, Gulyas 2014, Keating 2014, Kushen 2014, Libération 2014, MDR 2014, MiGAZIN 2014, Roth 2014, Die Welt 2014, Weisz 2014, Wetzel 2014).

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06.08.2014 KZ Lety: demand for an appropriate memorial instead of pig farm

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During the occupation by the Nazis, there was a concentration camp for Rroma in the South Bohemian town of Lety, which was operated by Czech collaborators. Some 1,300 people were interned there; hundreds of them were murdered. Despite this grim finding, today there still is no memorial at the site of the former labour camp. Instead, there is a pig farm built under communist rule. This irreverent handling of a memorial site was protested against for years. Culture Minister Daniel Herman reaffirmed in a broadcast by the Czech radio the plans to establish a permanent memorial: “I am very pleased that the Prime Minister has asked me and Human Rights Minister Jiří Dienstbier this spring during the commemorations in Lety to find a solution for the pig farm, and if appropriate, to seek its transfer. The aim is to build a memorial at the site of this former concentration camp, since currently, the memorial is located on the former burial ground. […] Of course, we want that there is a solution during the mandate of our government, because we feel responsible that it has not yet happened. It is certainly a disgrace in the accounting of our past. I think it is necessary that one also confronts the painful moments. And it is necessary to remember that this camp was not under the auspices of German Nazis, but was led by their Czech collaborators. The guards were Czechs. And that’s actually our share of the Holocaust against the Roma. We have to face this issue.” The poor handling of the historical heritage of the Rroma Holocaust is emblematic of the insufficient respect for the minority in the present. Segregated schools, discrimination in the labour market and widespread prejudices continue to make the life of the Rroma anything but easy (compare Kraus 2014). – The chairman of the right-wing nationalist Úsvit party, Tomio Okamura, provoked a political outcry on Monday when he announced that no one had died in Lety. The concentration camp of Lety was a myth, he stated. Numerous politicians, including the Czech minister for human rights, Jiří Dienstbier, called for his resignation (Prager Zeitung 2014).

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06.08.2014 Debate on the status of safe countries of origin

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Rüssmann (2014) reports on the ongoing debate about the status of safe countries of origin, which Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina are scheduled to receive from Germany. The draft law on the three Eastern European countries is currently being discussed in parliament. Because the representatives of the green party have turned against this attempt in all provinces until now, it is still pending. If only one green governed state agrees, the law can be adopted. Councils of refugees and asylum forums are decidedly opposing this attempt and they are reminding green party members of parliaments of the need for their steadfastness. The debate is fuelled by a recent decision of the Macedonian constitutional court: The court has ruled that the passport act, which allows the withdrawal of nationality when a Macedonian is deported due to a negative asylum application, is unlawful to Macedonia’s constitution and to the human rights. Added to this are questionable practices at the border, where potential asylum seekers are prevented from leaving: “Macedonia has, like Serbia, tightened its exit permits more and more. This was done under pressure from the EU to obtain the visa waiver. Therefore, since 2010, Macedonian border guards may prevent people from leaving when they harm international relations – as plain text: if a person wants to seek asylum in the EU. As a result, over 10,000 people, particularly Roma, have been denied exit by mid-2013, according to a pro-asylum reports, with reference to the human rights commissioner of the council of Europe and the U.S. state department.” To deny a citizen to leave his country contradicts international law. However, the German federal office for migration sees this differently and states that the right to leave is not a “basic human right”. As we already stated several times, there is also the problem that with the status of a safe country of origin, official assessments of the security situation of minorities in a given country are put above the real life experiences of individuals. Officially, a country can respect the security and rights of minorities. However, this does not mean at all that this really happens in everyday life, as shocking individual destinies reveal.

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