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Roma people now face same rising anti-Gypsy fascism as back in the 1930s printable version

02 Aug 2015: posted by the editor - International

Soraya Post, presently the only Romani MEP in the European Parliament, says Roma people face the same rising anti-Gypsy fascism as back in the 1930s.

Speaking in the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Camp) at Auschwitz on Sunday, Soraya Post said: “We are assembled here today to honour and to remember over 3,000 Roma exterminated during the night of the second of August 1944 here in Auschwitz - Birkenau. This commemoration is the symbol of the suffering of Roma and Sinti during the Second World War. It is also the symbol of ongoing Antigypsyism throughout Europe. Then and today.

“I feel sorrow. It hurts to be here. It hurts to be reminded. It hurts to understand. It hurts to learn.

“I will carry my sorrow for the rest of my life until my people are justified. Until the day Roma and Sinti are recognised as human beings. Until society acts with equal respect towards all citizens. This sorrow will only go away when I can see a change for a better future for our children. The daily struggle to survive has to end. We need to be able to plan and dream just like everyone else.

“I am tired. I am tired from carrying the memories. I am tired of telling them.

“But there is no rest for us. There is no time to process our sorrow because the stories and the conflict goes on. Can we tell our children that it is over? Can we forget and move on? Can we tell ourselves that the future will be brighter?

“I want to apologize to the survivors present here today.

“My generation has failed. We were supposed to right the wrongs. We were supposed to build a new world. I am so sorry for what you have to see and hear in Europe today.

“We see the same propaganda, the same racist rhetoric and the same violence growing as in the 1930s.

“In order to make sure that history doesn´t repeat itself our societies need to work against racism on all levels. We need to understand what creates hate, what sustains it and what makes it spread. We need to come up with tools that can help us keep hate back. We need to implement those tools and we need to make racism and discrimination matters worthy of our resources on a grand scale. The people of Europe need to see change and political will.

“We, all citizens of Europe, need this. No matter of gender, functionality or ethnicity we want a society where all are equal and are equally valued and have equal right to live a life of dignity.

“I hope that the adoption of the resolution on the 15th of April by the European Parliament on the occasion of International Roma Day - Anti-Gypsyism in Europe and EU recognition of the memorial day of the Roma genocide during World War II. It is with careful excitement I note that the European Commission is now using the term Antigypsyism in their texts regarding their work to better the situation for Roma in Europe. It is a small but important step.

“At the same time I wonder at the difference words can make. What happens when the amount of people that openly call themselves racist is growing in Europe. We are even seeing European states making open racist remarks. I do not hear strong objections against this. There is silence and patience. Politicians do not raise their voices. I fear this silence. It is our most dangerous enemy. The silence of the many when the few are singled out. It was then and it is today.

“We need resources and we need priority.

“We need to make the struggle against racism into what binds us. Europe needs to be a place where all people can live as free as the next.

“If we do not achieve the dream we will live the nightmare.

“Today we are at one of the darkest places of history. But history does not end here. This place is the symbol of hate, death and what humans are capable of doing to one another. But it is neither its graveyard nor its keeper.

“Many of the Roma and Sinti that died during the Second World War did so in the countryside. Killed by normal people. Neighbours. Colleagues. It took so little for them to kill. Still today we find new graves of Roma in the European countryside from that time.

“The life span of Roma and Sinti in Europe today is much lower than that of non-Roma citizens. At around 35 years of age, our age curve begins to drop. Life expectancy in Europe is lower for Roma. The quality of life of those years is often parallell to the 19th century.

“The official statistics of violence against Roma whisper of a much greater reality in which Roma are beaten, abused and even killed for the sake of being Roma or Sinti.

“We do not seldom lack electricity or drinking water. We do not always have roads to take us to work or school.

“This is Europe. This is 2015. We are closing in on being a hundred years from the atrocities of this place.

“Often it is not the situation itself that frustrates me the most. A lot of us have lived the situation for a long time. The true frustration comes when I see the lack humanity and political will and when I see how easy it is to make the situation better.

“I was in a European city. I met four mothers who told me that their kids were not allowed on the school bus. The school bus passed their kids every day. They had to walk across cornfields as the bus passed them by.

“We spoke to the city officials and they arranged for the children to go on the bus.

“It took five minutes. Five minutes. That broke my heart.

“Why did the mothers have to come to the City Hall for years when it took five minutes to fix the problem?

“I was in a another European country. A Roma settlement that had been there since the end of the Second World War and it did not have running water. 100 metres down the street there were regular houses were non-Roma lived. They had running water.

“To the authorities of that country those 100 metres could just as well have been 5000 kilometres. The Roma living in that settlement did not matter. Whatever happened to the people in that settlement did not matter.

“The lack of political will is killing Roma in Europe today. The incapacity to regard Roma as human beings of equal value and rights is killing Roma in Europe today.

“The lack of political will is eating our societies from within. It is the backdoor through which neo-nazi, fascist, racist and nationalist movements are entering our democracies.

“We have to end Antigypsyism. We need to work together against all forms of racism. We need to push stronger in unity for a democracy worthy of the principles of the Declaration of the Human Rights.

“I would like to stop here and make a personal note.

“I was born condemned because of my ethnicity, society told me that I am second class citizen and I believed so for the most of my life. I knew that it wasn´t right but the experiences I suffered in school, on the streets and throughout my life confirmed the fact that I was different. I was worth less than others.

“My own brother was taken from us because we were Sinti. My mother was made to go through a forced abortion and sterilisation in her seventh month. They took him away. This happened in Sweden in 1959 in a place were there was no war or racist propaganda. It happened with the help of the quiet consensus that was formed by widespread Antigypsyism.

“Last year Sweden published a White Paper of its abuse of its Roma minority during the 20th century.

“Today the Swedish government is evicting and ignoring the needs of Roma coming from other European countries seeking a better life.

“History repeats itself.

“We need priority and we need resources. Now.

“If we can not achieve the dream. We will live the nightmare.

“I would like to share my three truths. I got them from a man who sat in a concentration camp and spent his whole life talking to school children about his experiences during the war.

“There is only one race - the human being
“There is only one religion - love
“There is only one world - or no world at all”

Tags: Roma, Zigeunerlager

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