by Michael Smith
This year, 2009, sees the 65th Anniversary of the liquidation of the Gypsy camp, the so-called “Zigeunerlager” at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In reference to this the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma (Zentralrat der Deuschen Sinti und Roma) together with its partner association, the Stowarzyszenie Romów from Poland, is encouraging and inviting everyone to join them at the international memorial ceremony which will take place at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland on the 2nd of August.
The 2nd of August has become the most important day of commemoration within the international community of the Holocaust victims of the Romani minority.
The last 2,900 Sinti and Roma, who the Nazis had deported to the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, from all over Europe, were gassed on this day in 1944, not very long before the liberation of this notorious death camps by the victorious forces of the Soviet Army.
For the most part those that were gassed were the old and sick and mothers with their children.
Against this background the anniversary not only has a fundamental meaning for those directly affected, i.e. the victims and their relatives, but also for the European culture of memory as a whole.
In addition to high political and diplomatic representatives from a large number of states, delegations from national Sinti and Roma organizations from the whole of Europe are expected to attend the memorial ceremony on the 2nd of August 2009 at the former site of the camp – one of the largest burial sites of Sinti and Roma.
In accepting this invitation by the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, extended to you by its president, Mr. Romani Rose, and by your participation you would not only pay tribute to the last survivors of the Romani Holocaust – whose number is rapidly shrinking day by day – but also show your support for overcoming the racism and social disadvantage which Europe 's largest minority is still subjected to.
Let us use this as a loud cry to the world of “never again!” We must also not forget and we must remind the world that even after the liberation of the camps the survivors of our People were still not treated with any kind of dignity. In fact they were still, basically, treated as before. Many of them had to stay in camps even after because they had their German citizenship taken away by the Nazis and the new administration in the Federal Republic of Germany had no intention of making things any easier for our People.
Let us never forget!
© M Smith (Veshengro), 2009
<>
Showing posts with label Gypsy Holocaust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gypsy Holocaust. Show all posts
UN refuses to include Romani victims in Holocaust memorial event
by Michael Smith
The organizers of the United Nations Holocaust Memorial event to be held on January 27 have vehemently refused to include the Romani victims of the Nazi atrocities as victims of the Holocaust.
The Romani have, in fact, as it would appear, been actively excluded with the usual claims by the self-came people that have also ensured that the only Romani person ever to be on the US Holocaust Memorial Council was removed by no less personage than former President G W Bush.
Many Romani organizations and individuals have complained to the organizers but to no avail with the exception that the people responsible have blocked all further email contacts and have turned off their public email.
Why do such actions not really surprise me?
The answer to that is simple and two-fold. One is that the UN, despite lip service, has no intention of really and truly recognizing the Romani People as a People and a Nation amongst nations, and two is the fact that, as far as the Holocaust and its remembering is concerned there is just a way too influential lobby groups there that claims this occurrence as being uniquely theirs.
Well, I have some bad news for them. Gypsies, Romani People, have suffered in the Holocaust, yes, fold, the Holocaust, for the same reasons as those that thing that this is just for them and Gypsies do not defile the memory of said Holocaust as we don't just wish to be associated with it, we are part of it. Period! Dosta!
On the other hand: why do we not organize our own events and make them public far and wide regardless of some other screaming that we “defile the memory of the Holocaust by wishing to be associated with it”. The Romani People were, in fact, the first that were targeted for extermination in Germany and that already under the regimes before Hitler. Hitler only continued ideas and policies as far as the Gypsy People were concerned to have all Gypsies in Germany exterminated for reasons of a foreign race that had been formulated at an earlier date.
It was 250 Gypsy children in what was then Czechoslovakia that were the first victims of the Zyklon B poison gas; they were in fact the Guinea pigs to see whether it worked and how much was needed. It was the same as to the “Einsatzgruppen” and their gassing trucks. The first to be allowed to try them out were Gypsies that has been rounded up in areas such as Bessarabia.
The United Nations should be ashamed of itself for allowing this active exclusion of the Romani in the Holocaust Memorial Day. This cannot and must not be allowed. But who will listen.
Then again. Our voice, the voice of the Romani People, is simply not powerful enough.. We do not shout loud enough. Time this be changed, methinks.
Just before anyone comes along again and being concerned that I might be falling into the “hate trap”, as someone called it, let me ensure you all that I am falling into no trap. I just state what no one else seems to be willing to state in words because they think it not politically correct. I know that some would call that a “hate crime” even, I am sure, but so be it. If speaking the truth is becoming thus then, I guess, I am guilty as charged.
I must admit that, as far as I am concerned in this I am Romani, I am Gypsy first, and that is all that counts to me. Everything else comes after that. But, it would appear that while other people can make bold statements as to them being first and foremost what they are and such when a Gyppo does that then he or she is in the wrong. Must be because we are Gyppos.
Well, that must change. We must put our Romani People first! Others can do it and we can do too.
Ava! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
<>
The organizers of the United Nations Holocaust Memorial event to be held on January 27 have vehemently refused to include the Romani victims of the Nazi atrocities as victims of the Holocaust.
The Romani have, in fact, as it would appear, been actively excluded with the usual claims by the self-came people that have also ensured that the only Romani person ever to be on the US Holocaust Memorial Council was removed by no less personage than former President G W Bush.
Many Romani organizations and individuals have complained to the organizers but to no avail with the exception that the people responsible have blocked all further email contacts and have turned off their public email.
Why do such actions not really surprise me?
The answer to that is simple and two-fold. One is that the UN, despite lip service, has no intention of really and truly recognizing the Romani People as a People and a Nation amongst nations, and two is the fact that, as far as the Holocaust and its remembering is concerned there is just a way too influential lobby groups there that claims this occurrence as being uniquely theirs.
Well, I have some bad news for them. Gypsies, Romani People, have suffered in the Holocaust, yes, fold, the Holocaust, for the same reasons as those that thing that this is just for them and Gypsies do not defile the memory of said Holocaust as we don't just wish to be associated with it, we are part of it. Period! Dosta!
On the other hand: why do we not organize our own events and make them public far and wide regardless of some other screaming that we “defile the memory of the Holocaust by wishing to be associated with it”. The Romani People were, in fact, the first that were targeted for extermination in Germany and that already under the regimes before Hitler. Hitler only continued ideas and policies as far as the Gypsy People were concerned to have all Gypsies in Germany exterminated for reasons of a foreign race that had been formulated at an earlier date.
It was 250 Gypsy children in what was then Czechoslovakia that were the first victims of the Zyklon B poison gas; they were in fact the Guinea pigs to see whether it worked and how much was needed. It was the same as to the “Einsatzgruppen” and their gassing trucks. The first to be allowed to try them out were Gypsies that has been rounded up in areas such as Bessarabia.
The United Nations should be ashamed of itself for allowing this active exclusion of the Romani in the Holocaust Memorial Day. This cannot and must not be allowed. But who will listen.
Then again. Our voice, the voice of the Romani People, is simply not powerful enough.. We do not shout loud enough. Time this be changed, methinks.
Just before anyone comes along again and being concerned that I might be falling into the “hate trap”, as someone called it, let me ensure you all that I am falling into no trap. I just state what no one else seems to be willing to state in words because they think it not politically correct. I know that some would call that a “hate crime” even, I am sure, but so be it. If speaking the truth is becoming thus then, I guess, I am guilty as charged.
I must admit that, as far as I am concerned in this I am Romani, I am Gypsy first, and that is all that counts to me. Everything else comes after that. But, it would appear that while other people can make bold statements as to them being first and foremost what they are and such when a Gyppo does that then he or she is in the wrong. Must be because we are Gyppos.
Well, that must change. We must put our Romani People first! Others can do it and we can do too.
Ava! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
<>
German memorial for Gypsy victims of Nazis – building finally starts
by Michael Smith
BERLIN, Germany, December 2008 – Germany has finally begun the building a memorial to in honor of the approximately one to one-and-a-half million Gypsies persecuted by the Nazis.
Construction on the square well in Berlin's central Tiergarten Park follows 16 years of debate among leading groups representing Germany's Gypsies, or Sinti and Roma. It is due to be completed in 2009.
Romani Rose, leader of Germany's Central Council for Sinti and Roma, spoke at Friday's groundbreaking ceremony. Rose praised the government for "recognizing its historical responsibility for those Gypsies who were persecuted under the Nazis."
The German government, someone should tell Mr. Rose, had recognized the historical responsibility for those Gypsies who were persecuted under the Nazis already a number of years ago but it was Mr Rose's bickering as to the terms that caused the delay. While the majority of Romani in Germany had no qualms with the terminology of “als Zigeuner verfolgten” or the simple word “Zigeuner” (that is to say “Gypsy”) it was Rose and the Central Council for Sinti and Roma that fought tooth and nail against the term “Zigeuner”, insisting it had to be Sinti and Roma. In that same breath they also denied the fact that the Jenisch, another groups of Gypsies in Germany who may or may not be related to the Romani, the Sinti in this case, though at times are intermarried with the Sinti. Then again it is not surprising that the Central Council excluded the Sinti seeing that this very organization that is supposed to be representing the Gypsies of Germany is always trying to exclude the Jenisch from everything.
Depending on the estimates and calculations and the numbers game, and depending who one can and should believe, remembering the hidden agendas to diminish the suffering of the Gypsy People in the Holocaust, between 250,000 to 1.5 million – the high number comes from the Frankfurter Fachhochschule in Germany itself – Gypsies were killed during the Holocaust. Berlin already has memorials to Jews and gay victims killed by the Nazis, which shows, yet again, that Gypsies are only considered as “also ran” despite the very fact that it was Gypsies who were targeted for extermination well before Jews and others and that it was 250 Gypsy children on which Zyclon B gas was trialled.
© M Smith (Veshengro), December 2008
<>
BERLIN, Germany, December 2008 – Germany has finally begun the building a memorial to in honor of the approximately one to one-and-a-half million Gypsies persecuted by the Nazis.
Construction on the square well in Berlin's central Tiergarten Park follows 16 years of debate among leading groups representing Germany's Gypsies, or Sinti and Roma. It is due to be completed in 2009.
Romani Rose, leader of Germany's Central Council for Sinti and Roma, spoke at Friday's groundbreaking ceremony. Rose praised the government for "recognizing its historical responsibility for those Gypsies who were persecuted under the Nazis."
The German government, someone should tell Mr. Rose, had recognized the historical responsibility for those Gypsies who were persecuted under the Nazis already a number of years ago but it was Mr Rose's bickering as to the terms that caused the delay. While the majority of Romani in Germany had no qualms with the terminology of “als Zigeuner verfolgten” or the simple word “Zigeuner” (that is to say “Gypsy”) it was Rose and the Central Council for Sinti and Roma that fought tooth and nail against the term “Zigeuner”, insisting it had to be Sinti and Roma. In that same breath they also denied the fact that the Jenisch, another groups of Gypsies in Germany who may or may not be related to the Romani, the Sinti in this case, though at times are intermarried with the Sinti. Then again it is not surprising that the Central Council excluded the Sinti seeing that this very organization that is supposed to be representing the Gypsies of Germany is always trying to exclude the Jenisch from everything.
Depending on the estimates and calculations and the numbers game, and depending who one can and should believe, remembering the hidden agendas to diminish the suffering of the Gypsy People in the Holocaust, between 250,000 to 1.5 million – the high number comes from the Frankfurter Fachhochschule in Germany itself – Gypsies were killed during the Holocaust. Berlin already has memorials to Jews and gay victims killed by the Nazis, which shows, yet again, that Gypsies are only considered as “also ran” despite the very fact that it was Gypsies who were targeted for extermination well before Jews and others and that it was 250 Gypsy children on which Zyclon B gas was trialled.
© M Smith (Veshengro), December 2008
<>
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
