Although informations on this incident are rather sketchy the gist of is that sometime at the end of June 2007 the Dutch Police carried out a raid on a Sinti Camp, a residential trailer park for Sinti, in the province of Branbant, with such heavy handedness, force and brutality that catapulted some of the old folk on that site back in time causing them to believe that the SS and the Gestapo had arrived again.
Every home and every resident on that site was searched; men, women and children, and every person was given a number, written upon their forearm or the hand, reminiscent to the tattoos of the Nazi era.
A great number of the residents of this Gypsy Site are indeed survivors of the Romani Holocaust and were left rather traumatized by this.
No apparent reason seems to have been given for this raid and obviously no apologies offered for the behavior of the police officers involved either.
Should we be surprised that this has been happening now, at the same time while other EU member states also seem to act like the SS towards our People? Probably not, though it does come as somewhat a surprise that such a thing has happened in the Netherlands, a country that has a fairly good record as far as the treatment of the Romani People is concerned, perpetrated by Dutch police officers during an official action. This, in fact, should make us all rather concerned.
Can you all hear the Nazi Jackboots marching under the banner of the EU? I certainly can.
Time for us Rom to stand up and be counted and to prepare to fight for our freedom. The time to hide is gone. It is time to be highly visible and ready to act.
© M V Smith, July 2007
