2 August marks the 80th anniversary of the murder of the last Roma and Sinti in Auschwitz and 2nd August is now accepted as the memorial day for the Roma who died in the Holocaust or Porajmos, as it is also called.
At this time, my mind goes back exactly ten years to the day when I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau on a hot Polish summer’s afternoon for the 70th anniversary commemoration.
Flags
There are two things I remember about that afternoon; firstly, seeing young Roma proudly carrying the Roma flag and sitting on that warm afternoon on the brick remains of what had been the huts in the Roma family area where the ceremony took place.
I thought that there was something very symbolic about that. The huts were gone, but the Roma youth and their flag were still here, despite all that had gone on. The Roma had survived – unlike the Nazis.
Speeches
My other great memory are the many fine words read out in statements from representatives of this government and that government, from John Kerry, then United States’ Secretary of State, from a representative of the Papacy, from the Polish government among many others.
There was also a remarkable speech from a Green party representative of them ruling coalition in Germany and she was clearly distraught at what her country had done 70 years earlier. You can tell when someone is crying crocodile tears, and she wasn’t. She meant it. And she was embraced by one of the main Roma speakers that day.
It was great to see. But as for the other warm words, from other governments, what have they led to? Why is it that I still wonder why these words haven’t really been backed up with actions and why the Roma are still discriminated against in so many parts of Europe, both east and west. When will we learn?
The Porajmos
The Roma have suffered under draconian laws in Europe, since they first came out of the Punjabi region of India around 1 000 years ago. Nobody is certain as to why they migrated towards Europe, but one thing is for sure; they came in small groups to a continent, which was already claimed by various other groups going back to the Celts and up to the more recent migrants, the Slavs, who had settled in large numbers in eastern Europe. Consequently, the Roma were never able to build their own nation, were always minorities in other people’s countries, who were perceived as different and therefore sadly prone to be made scapegoats by others, especially when times were hard.
The persecution and the constant danger for Roma people continued up until the 20th century. Then came the Holocaust or as some Roma call it, the Porajmos or Devouring.
Persecution began early in the Nazis rule of Germany. Roma lives were constrained as much by the terrible Nuremberg laws as the Jewish people’s lives were. Once the Second World War started things were to get much worse. The first recorded case of gassings in the entire war, came on 7th January 1942, when the first of 5 000 Roma, who had been deported to the Jewish ghetto in Lodz from encampments in Germany were taken to Chelmno by truck. It was reported by martin Gilbert a world-renowned expert on the Holocaust that, “all were gassed”
It is not known what the exact number of Roma who were killed in the Porajmos was, as the Nazis didn’t keep records of how many of the Roma they had murdered. The European Roma Rights Centre have estimated that upwards of 500 000 Roma and Sinti were murdered in cold blood by the Nazis.
Under representation
Until recently the Porajmos has been little more than a footnote in history of the Holocaust. This was partly because there was less Roma than Jews and many were illiterate, so survivors were not as able or as articulate in documenting what happened to them.
It has been noted by Isabel Fonseca that: “Gypsies’ oral and itinerant traditions have not thrown up great numbers of Gypsy scholars”, while Adam Jones has noted that Roma marginalisation and persecution are still high across Europe. There seems little doubt that the fate of the Roma in the Holocaust has been under-represented.
Surely if it was better known and understood then it could at least be hoped that there would be less hostility towards them today across Europe. Even more worrying, the historian Sybil Milton has claimed that there was, “a tacit conspiracy of silence about the isolation, exclusion and systematic killing of the Roma, rendering much of current Holocaust scholarship deficient and obsolete.”
That nothing seems to have been learnt from the horrors of the Holocaust can be seen in what prominent Roma academic and campaigner Ian Hancock said in 2009, when he declared that, “anti-Gypsyism is at an all -time high” It is further argued that it has only been since the late 1970’s that a civil-rights movement along with scholarly literature, has arisen to confront discrimination and to remember Romani suffering during the Nazi era. Clearly there is a need for a greater understanding of this suffering and the connections between this and what is happening today.
The Roma in the Northeast
Many European countries this century have not been protecting Roma against racially motivated crime. In one example of this, 20 Roma families were forced to flee their homes in Belfast in June 2010 after crowd gathered outside their homes, “shouting racist slogans, smashing windows and kicking in doors” Similar attacks have taken place in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia in recent years. In addition Amnesty International points out that, law enforcement officials across Europe often indulge in racist and stereotyping behaviour, including ethnic profiling. Roma have been disproportionately stopped and searched, often just for being Roma.
There have been high levels of discrimination faced by Roma in areas of employment and in accessing goods, services and housing and this demonstrates the failure of European governments to protect Roma against discrimination in the private sector .
There has also been widespread discrimination against the Roma in the area of schooling, with around half of Roma children being marginalised in elementary schools, with a very limited curriculum. This substandard education means that Roma attainment levels are far below average . This then makes it harder for them to get good jobs and even those who have had a more mainstream education often find it difficult to break into the labour market. The Roma is also discriminated against in terms of health. It has even been known for Roma women to be sterilised without their knowledge, as they are forced to sign a piece of paper about a routine operation and sign their rights away.
Roma in Tyneside
It is against this background that about 6 000 Eastern European Roma have come to make Tyneside their home over the last 20 years.
It is therefore very good to see that many people on Tyneside have welcomed the Roma. About ten years ago I asked some of them how they felt about living on Tyneside.
One said: “I was invited to Newcastle by friends. I was told there were vacancies and jobs. I stayed for a week with friends, got jobs and a week later had my own place and everything. Newcastle is my home. The people are O.K.”
Another commented that: “Newcastle is very good. The children have done well in school. They can speak English very well. There are good teachers in England, and they treat everybody fairly.”
A third respondent said: “when I go to local authorities they receive me as a person, there is no difference with me. I don’t feel Newcastle is racist; I don’t sense racism around us. There were numerous other comments in a similar vein.
Roma Holocaust commemoration events on Tyneside
The Roma in Europe have been waiting 1 000 years to be treated in a humane, decent manner. Here on Tyneside, there are many people who are at least making a start, treating Roma with the dignity they deserve with continued support, there is no reason why the Eastern European Roma shouldn’t be able to play a full part in the wider community.
There will be a number of events around Tyneside to remember the 80th anniversary of the Porajmos or Roma Holocaust. I hope that we can all hold the Roma people in our thoughts and prayers at this time.
