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< Viewpoints
< 2008
"The shameful history of anti-Gypsyism is forgotten - and
repeated"[18/08/08]
Only a few thousand Roma in Germany survived the Holocaust and the
concentration camps. They faced enormous difficulties when trying to
build up their lives again, having lost so many of their family members
and relatives, and having had their properties destroyed or confiscated.
Many of them had their health ruined. When some of them tried to obtain
compensation, their claims were rejected for years.
For these survivors no justice came with the post-Hitler era.
Significantly, the mass killing of the Roma people was not an issue at
the Nürnberg trial. The genocide of the Roma – Samudaripe or
Porrajmos – was hardly recognised in the public discourse.
This passive denial of the grim facts could not have been surprising to
the Roma themselves, as for generations they had been treated as a
people without history. The violations they had suffered were quickly
forgotten, if even recognised.
Sadly, this same pattern is repeated even today.
That is why it is particularly valuable that the Council of Europe has
produced a series of fact sheets on Roma History. These are intended for
teachers, pupils, political and other decision makers and every one else
interested in knowing the facts about what this people have gone
through.
Readers of these fact sheets may learn about 500 years of shameful
repression in Europe of the various Roma groups since their arrival
following the long migration from India. The methods have varied between
enslavement, enforced assimilation, expulsion, internment and mass
killings.
The ‘reasons’ for these policies have, however, been similar. The Roma
were seen as unreliable, dangerous, criminal, and undesirable. They were
the outsiders who could easily be used as scapegoats when things went
wrong and the locals did not want to take responsibility.
In Wallachia and Moldavia (today’s Romania) the Roma lived in slavery
and bondage for centuries up to 1855 when the last Roma slaves were
finally emancipated.
In Spain more than ten thousand Roma were rounded up in a well planned
military-police action one day in 1749. The purpose according to a
leading clergyman who advised the government was to ‘root out this bad
race, which is hateful to God and pernicious to man’. The result was
devastating to the Roma community – the deportations, detentions, forced
labour and killings destroyed much of the original Roma culture.
In the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the 18th century the rulers
applied a policy of enforced assimilation. Roma children were taken from
their parents and instructions went out that no Roma was allowed to
marry another Roma. Furthermore, the Romani language was banned. This
policy was brutally enforced. For instance, the use of the ‘Gypsy’
language was to be punishable by flogging.
Fascists in the 20th century turned also against the Roma. In Italy a
circular went out in 1926 which ordered the expulsion of all foreign
Roma in order to ‘cleanse the country of Gypsy caravans which needless
to recall, constitute a risk to safety and public health by virtue of
the characteristic Gypsy lifestyle’.
The order made clear that the aim was to ‘strike at the heart of the
Gypsy organism’. What followed in fascist Italy for the Roma was
discrimination and persecution. Many were detained in special camps;
others were sent to Germany or Austria and later exterminated.
The fascist ‘Iron Guard’ regime in Romania started deportations in 1942.
Like many Jews, about 30.00 Roma were brought across the river Dniester
where they suffered hunger, disease and death. Only about half of them
managed to survive the two years of extreme hardship before the policy
changed.
In France about 6,000 Roma were interned during the war, the majority of
them in the occupied zone. Unlike other victims, the Roma were not
systematically released upon the German retreat. The new French
authorities saw internment as a means of forcing them to settle.
.
In the Baltic States a large number of the Roma inhabitants were killed
by the German invasion forces and their local supporters within the
police. Only 5-10 per cent of the Roma in Estonia survived. In Latvia
about half of the Roma were shot while it is estimated that a vast
majority of those in Lithuania were also killed.
In fact, all countries in Europe were affected by the racist ideas of
the time. In the neutral Sweden the authorities had encouraged a
sterilisation program already in the twenties which primarily targeted
the Roma (and which continued up to the seventies). Also in Norway
pressure was exerted on Roma to sterilise.
The Nazi regime defined the Roma (including the Sinti) as ‘racially
inferior’ with an ‘asocial behaviour’ which was deemed hereditary. This,
in fact, was a development of old and widespread prejudices in both
Germany and Austria. The so-called Nürnberg race laws of 1935 deprived
the Roma of their nationality and citizen’s rights. It was demanded that
they should be interned into labour camps and sterilised by force.
An earlier plan of Nazi racists to keep some of the ‘racially pure’ Roma
in a sort of anthropological museum was forgotten, while some Roma, not
least children, were singled out for Josef Mengele’s cruel medical
experiments. A policy of forced sterilisation was implemented, often
without anaesthesia.
The systematic murder of Roma started in the summer 1941 when German
troops attacked the Soviet Union. They were seen as spies (like many
Jews) for the ‘Jewish Bolshevism’ and were shot by the German army and
the SS in mass executions. Indeed, in all areas occupied by the Nazis
there were executions of Roma people.
Figures are uncertain, but it is estimated that far more than hundred
thousand were executed in those situations, including in the Balkans
where the killings were supported by local fascists. The Ustascha
militia in Croatia ran camps but also organised deportations and carried
out mass executions.
In December 1942, the Nazi regime decided that all Roma in the ‘German
Reich’ should be deported to Auschwitz. There they had to wear a dark
triangle and a Z was tattooed to their arm. Of all camp inmates they had
the highest death rate: 19,300 lost their lives there. Of them 5,600
were gassed and 13,700 died from hunger, disease or following medical
experiments.
It is still not known how many Roma in total fell victim to the Nazi
persecution. Not all Roma were registered as Roma and the records are
incomplete. The fact that there was no reliable statistics about the
number of Roma in these areas before the mass killings makes it even
more difficult to estimate the actual number of casualties. The Council
of Europe fact sheets state that it is highly probable that the number
was at least 250,000. Other credible studies indicate that more than
500,000 Roma lost their lives, perhaps many more.
The fact sheets underline that there is a need of further research on
the Roma history. The Roma themselves have had little possibility of
recording events and the authorities have had little interest in doing
so. Still there are Roma and other scholars whose work should be
encouraged (several of them have been drawn upon by the authors of the
fact sheets, for instance Ian Hancock and Grattan Puxon).
However, already the published fact sheets do make a difference. My hope
is that many people will read them and that governments in Europe will
support and facilitate this through translating these texts into
national languages and disseminating them to teachers, politicians and
others. Roma organisations should be assisted in circulating them widely
within their communities.
There are a number of conclusions that will have to be drawn by a
serious reader. One is that it is not surprising that there is a lack of
trust amongst many Roma towards the majority society and that some of
them see the authorities as a threat. When told to register or to be
fingerprinted they fear the worst.
Indeed, there has still not been any recognition in several countries
that this minority has been repressed in the past and no official
apology has been given. One good example to the contrary was the
decision by the government Bucharest in 2003 to establish a commission
on the Holocaust which later published an important report on the
repression and killings in Romania during the fascist period.
The fact sheets illustrate that the Roma have not migrated for devious
reasons or because travelling is “in their blood”. When it has been
possible they have indeed settled but for long they have had to move
between or within countries to avoid repression or simply because they
were not allowed to stay. The other main reason was that the kind of
employment or jobs which were open to them required their moving.
There are lessons from history on how to handle the present spread of
anti-Gypsyism in some countries. The rhetoric from some politicians and
xenophobic media has revived age-old stereotypes about the Roma and this
in turn has ‘legitimised’ actions, sometimes violent, against Roma
individuals. Again, they are made scapegoats.
Today’s rhetoric against the Roma is very similar to the one used by
Nazis and fascists before the mass killings started in the thirties and
forties. Once more, it is argued that the Roma is a threat to safety and
public health. No distinction is made between a few criminals and the
overwhelming majority of the Roma population. This is shameful and
dangerous.
Thomas Hammarberg
Links
The factsheets on Roma History is part of the Council of Europe Project
Education of Roma Children in Europe
Partner in the project is
the University of Graz
This Viewpoint can be re-published in newspapers or on the internet without
our prior consent, provided that the text is not modified and the original
source is indicated in the following way: "Also available at the Commissioner's
website at www.commissioner.coe.int"
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