The French president François Hollande mourned the victims of the only Nazi concentration camp on the French territory – The Struthof. During his visit, he mentioned the Rroma victims who are too often overlooked and forgotten.
An important part of the fight against prejudices towards Rroma is learning about their history and previous persecutions, such as the Holocaust. This is key, for only when one deals with one’s past can one actually shape one’s future.
The article assess that there have not been sufficient efforts to change the perceptions towards Rroma in the general population and only when this occurs, can one hope for a better future.
The red-green coalition from Baden Württemberg will deport asylum seekers from Serbia and Macedonia, many of then Rroma, on the anniversary of the deportation of Rroma in that Region. This anniversary celebrated on the 24th of March commemorates the first train filled with Rroma and Sinti that departed from Offenburg.
What a date to choose …
The current president of the federal tribunal, Ms. Bettina Limperg is ashamed at an old judgement from the tribunal referring to Rroma as a “plague”. Contrary to what one could think, this judgement was not made under the Nazis but in 1956, so eleven years after the end of the War.
This statement was alas by no mean an exception, as the Rroma Holocaust was not recognised as having been based on ethnicity until the 1970’s.
HNA reports on the research of a history teacher, Arndt Böttcher, who has been researching the history of a Rroma family in Battenberg, the Klein. The family settled in Battenberg in the 18th century and was deported to Auschwitz and other camps during the war. Many died but apparently 4 sons survived the horrors of the war.
An Article in the “Standard” in Austria speaks about the attacks 20 years ago in Oberwarth, and also about the Rroma who were deported to concentration camps during the war. Politicians attended the commemorations and spoke about a “peaceful coexistence”, something that is unfortunately still a dream, as an article of the same newspaper from a week ago showed.
The Lety Concentration Camp in the Czech Republic, a camp on which site there currently still is a pig farm is once again in the actualities. In this article, it is claimed that Paul Polansky, an amateur historian, brought the facts and existence of this camp to the world’s attention. While Paul Polanski effectively wrote two books on the topic, these were by far not the first ones about Lety (See for example Wickipedia.de on this topic). Fact is, this was one of the early Rroma camps where from many Rroma were deported to death camps.
The Huffington Post UK published a long article on non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Rroma stand prominently in this article.
For the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation on January 27th, the German press published a series of articles on the topic, highlighting the fact that besides Jews, Rroma were also victims of the Holocaust. How many died is still a matter of dispute, with numbers ranging from 250’000 to several millions. Truth will never be known, as, contrary to popular belief, the Germans did not keep accurate track of their deeds. Only people that stayed in camps for forced labour were registered. Those who were gassed upon arrival or simply shot in the woods in numerous places where not registerd. For example, Auschwitz’s registers show only ca. 405’000 registered people, while the estimates of how many were actually killed there range from 1.1 mio to a more probable 2.3 Mio people.
The Lety Concentration Camp in the Czech Republic, a camp on which site there currently still is a pig farm is once again in the actualities. In this article, it is claimed that Paul Polansky, an amateur historian, brought the facts and existence of this camp to the world’s attention. While Paul Polanski effectively wrote two books on the topic, these were by far not the first ones about Lety (See for example Wickipedia.de on this topic). Fact is, this was one of the early Rroma camps where from many Rroma were deported to death camps.
The Huffington Post UK published a long article on non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Rroma stand prominently in this article.
For the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation on January 27th, the German press published a series of articles on the topic, highlighting the fact that besides Jews, Rroma were also victims of the Holocaust. How many died is still a matter of dispute, with numbers ranging from 250’000 to several millions. Truth will never be known, as, contrary to popular belief, the Germans did not keep accurate track of their deeds. Only people that stayed in camps for forced labour were registered. Those who were gassed upon arrival or simply shot in the woods in numerous places where not registerd. For example, Auschwitz’s registers show only ca. 405’000 registered people, while the estimates of how many were actually killed there range from 1.1 mio to a more probable 2.3 Mio people.
The “Förderverein Roma” organises a march on January 27th in Frankfurt to mark the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Birkenau (Frankfurter Neue Presse). In that camp, with the special Rroma camp in Birkenau, countless Rroma from several countries were killed. The official number is fairly low, as is the case with Jews, as people that were gassed straight away were not registered. However, many Rroma from Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany and other countries were murdered there.
The Bishop Conference of Germany, for that same commemoration of the liberation liberation of the camp, issued a lengthy statement acknowledging the murder of minorities and other in Auschwitz and appealing for tolerance and help towards others.
Wilheml Alexander, King of the Netherlands, will read the names of victims of the Holocaust as part of a remembrace that will read out the name of 102’000 Jews, Rroma, and Sinti that were deported to concentration camps during the war. He will be part of 700 people reading these names on the 27th of January.
Niederländischer König verliest Namen von Holocaust-Opfern. Handelsblatt, 23.01.2015. http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/willem-alexander-niederlaendischer-koenig-verliest-namen-von-holocaust-opfern/11275470.html
Romani Rose, president of the Zentralrat der deutschen Sinti und Roma ponders about the aftermath and the collective conscience on the murder of Rroma and Sinti during the Holocaust. The fact that besides Jews, Rroma were singled out for racial reasons and murdered during the Holcaust is still not widely acknowledged or known. More work and more information is still required on this topic.
In an interview with Hungary Today, Gabor Vona, the leader of the extreme rightist party “Jobbik” claims to be moderate, and not to be against Jews and Rroma. This interview goes against many other speeches where he or other people from his party advocated the eradication of all Rroma, requesting Jews to leave, and so on. In the interview, he belittles the impact of the guard, a paramilitary arm of Jobbik that marches through Rroma communities and even Jewish neighbourhoods with raised Nazi salute.
This interview doesn’t at all reflect the true nature of the party nor the actual policies they try to enforce, for example by removing Rroma from neighbourhoods, as in Nyiregyhaza.
König (2014) reports on the latest book by the writer Stephanie Bart. Her novel tells the life story of the German Sinto Max Trollmann, who foughts as a boxer in the 1930s against the rise of Nazism, but then himself becomes a victim of the inhuman machinery. Due to his Rroma origins, he was discredited by Nazi functionaries: “Stephanie Beard tells of the rise of this clever young boxer – and in parallel of the rise of the Nazis in Germany. Relentlessly, the author shows how unjust, how ruthless, blinded and inhuman one dealt with opposition members and with those who did not correspond to the “Aryan” race. […] Trollmann is the German champion for only eight days. After that, he is denied the title because he is Sinto. […] The boxing federation deliberately reduces the size of the boxing ring to the disadvantage of Trollmann. He cannot, as usual, box at a distance. Trollmann knows that he will lose. He appears with dyed blond hair and a white powdered face, dressed up as a model Aryan. I’ll see them further first – his statement goes, which is a political one.” – In Auschwitz-Birkenau alone, 30,000 Rroma were murdered. Researchers emanate from at least half a million casualties among the Rroma. The genocide of the Rroma is much less known compared to the mass murder of the Jews. For a long time in the post-war period, Rroma were discredited and marginalized. West Germany did not recognize the genocide of the Rroma until 1982, many of the survivors were already dead by then.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (2014) reports on the publication of a new study on right-wing extremism in Germany. According to the study commissioned by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, prejudices against minorities like the Rroma remain strong in Germany: “The Foundation publishes the study every two years and examines the extent to which right-wing extremist viewpoints are common among the population. This year, 2,000 citizens were interviewed between June and August. Explicitly right-wing extremist viewpoints have thus become much less common in recent years and are at a new low. […] Nonetheless, still ten percent of the population thinks that National Socialism had its good points – and that Germany would need a “leader” who “rules the country with a strong hand for the benefit of all.” […] The authors of the study warned that there was no cause for complacency. It may be possible that some citizens are simply afraid to express their right-wing viewpoints openly because of the NSU affair. […] Zick [one of the authors] said that there was a ruthless “market-shaped extremism” in Germany, which follows distinct efficiency thinking. People who do not perform enough for society, but rather generate costs, are rejected in this way of thinking. [….] Also other groups – as Muslims or Sinti and Roma – are faced with widespread prejudices in Germany, the study states. Approximately 38 percent of the population thinks that Sinti and Roma are prone to crime.” Due to the genocide of 500,000 to one and a half million Rroma, Germany has a historical responsibility towards the minority. However, the Federal Republic met this responsibly only very slowly: the genocide of the Rroma was not recognised until 1982. Before that, the Holocaust was trivialized with the remark that there had been persecution because of the “anti-social behaviour” of the “Gypsies”, but not due to an eugenically motivated racial fanaticism. An official memorial in honour of the murdered Rroma was not inaugurated until 2012. – For the study of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 2,000 citizens were surveyed from June to August 2014 (compare Käfer 2014).
Trebbin (2014) reports on the award for the German Rroma-Holocaust survivor Hugo Höllenreiner. Höllenreiner is one of three thousand survivors who survived the “gypsy camp” of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Most of the approximately 30,000 prisoners, including many women and children, were killed. In the 1990s, Höllenreiner began to break his silence about this traumatic experience and henceforth committed himself as a contemporary witness. He has reported on the Nazi atrocities at Auschwitz-Birkenau to thousands of German pupils: “How SS men launched sheep dogs on naked people before his eyes. How they drove people into the gas chambers. How he had to witness mass shootings and then had to help with filling in the graves with the bodies of the murdered. And how little Hugo was lying on the operating table of camp doctor Josef Mengele… […] 36 family members of the Höllenreiners perished in the Holocaust. Hugo’s parents and their six children survived with a lot of luck and great courage. However, his education after the war and the liberation was short-lived: the teachers put the “Gypsy boy” unceremoniously out the door. The discrimination continued. So Hugo Höllenreiner had to start his career with peddling.” For his commitment as a contemporary witness to the Holocaust, Höllenreiner has now been awarded with the medal “Munich shines”. West Germany did not recognise the genocide of the Rroma until 1982, when many of the survivors had already died. The Holocaust of the Rroma is often incorrectly referred to with the word “Porrajmos”. The term, which traces back to the verb “porravav”, meaning to “open wide”, is often used in the context of sexual activity and therefore is not appropriate to describe a genocide.
RP Online (2014) addresses a debate on the graves of Auschwitz victims in Germany, among them many Rroma. Normally, graves are closed after a certain period of time if the lease is not extended. In the case of Holocaust survivors, German Rroma associations emphasise it is also about preserving history. Therefore, they fight against dismantling of the graves of Holocaust survivors, which then would pass into oblivion. In Krefeld, a descendant of a Rromni who survived the concentration camp, can no longer pay the grave fee due to financial issues. German Rroma associations decidedly fight against dismantling the resting place: “With a harsh protest, two organizations – The NRW state association of German Sinti and Roma and the German association for information and advice for victims of Nazi persecution – have been protesting against the fact that the city is not renouncing the fees for lease of the grave of a woman who was imprisoned in the Nazi death camp in Auschwitz. It is the grave of a Roma woman named Korpatsch. Her niece had paid for the grave for decades, but can no longer account for the costs for an extension. Jost Rebentisch of the federal association for victims of Nazi-prosecution accuses the city of historical amnesia. The city disregards the criticism: […] Because of legal reasons, it was not possible to formally renounce to the lease fee, as required by the association of Rebentisch. Although there is an initiative of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, according to which the burial of people persecuted in the war should be left free; but there is still no final settlement.” In Auschwitz-Birkenau alone, 30,000 Rroma were murdered. Researchers estimate at least half a million casualties among the Rroma. The genocide of the Rroma is much less known compared to the mass murder of the Jews. This is another reason why a preservation of the memory of the victims and the inhuman actions is of great importance (compare Freie Presse 2014).
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