Against the backdrop of the ongoing discussions surrounding the inscription of the planned central Holocaust memorial for Romani victims in Berlin, the president of the European Roma and Travellers Forum, Rudko Kawczynski, reiterated his demands to the German government to start with the quick realisation of the project.
“It is about time for Germany to finally take over its historic responsibility towards Sinti and Roma and start with the quick implementation of the planned project”, the president of the organisation, which represents the Romani interests at European level, said.
Regarding the demands of other groups of victims, Kawczynski said that he is well aware that the Nazis persecuted everyone who did not fit into their idea about a “true German”. “What is however particular about the persecution of Sinti and Roma is the fact that they were persecuted on racial grounds just as the Jews and persons of African descent”, Kawcynski said. “The National-Socialists created a whole science in order to determine the racial characteristics of the Roma. In contrast to the Jews even a person who had only one Rom among her grandparents was considered as a ‘gypsy half-breed’ and included into the extermination program of the National-Socialists”, Kawczynski explained.
As an outstanding example for the racistic character of the National-Socialist persecution of Roma the president of the European Roma and Travellers Forum quoted the example of Sidonie Adlersburg, who was tracked down as a ten-year old at the house of her foster parents by the Austrian social services in 1943 and brought to her biological parents in Ausschwitz, where she died shortly afterwards.
On these grounds Kawczynski supported the position of the German Federal Council of Sinti and Roma, who insists on the inscription to the memorial proposed by former German President, Roman Herzog, “The genocide against Sinti and Roma was carried for the same motives of the racial delusion, with the same determination and will to achieve a regular and complete extermination [of the Sinti and Roma] as it was done for the Jews.”
“I feel that the German Government consciously exploits the existing disagreement between different groups of victims in order not to become active”, Kawczynski said. Over the last year, the European Roma and Travellers Form has written repeatedly to the German Government and offered its mediation in the discussion about the inscription of the memorial. Last winter, the organization even offered to build a memorial under its own direction. Until today, the German Government has not reacted to this proposal.
The European-level interest representation finds an additional legitimation of its approach in the fact that the genocide of the Sinti and Roma was not only an “inner-German affair”.
“Most Roma who were murdered in the name of the National Socialist ideology lived outside Germany”, Kawczynski said. For this reason he considers it as an insult that the German federal government publicly dismissed the offer of his organization in her answer to a parliamentary question of the German Green party.
European Roma and Travellers Forum http://ertf.org
“It is about time for Germany to finally take over its historic responsibility towards Sinti and Roma and start with the quick implementation of the planned project”, the president of the organisation, which represents the Romani interests at European level, said.
Regarding the demands of other groups of victims, Kawczynski said that he is well aware that the Nazis persecuted everyone who did not fit into their idea about a “true German”. “What is however particular about the persecution of Sinti and Roma is the fact that they were persecuted on racial grounds just as the Jews and persons of African descent”, Kawcynski said. “The National-Socialists created a whole science in order to determine the racial characteristics of the Roma. In contrast to the Jews even a person who had only one Rom among her grandparents was considered as a ‘gypsy half-breed’ and included into the extermination program of the National-Socialists”, Kawczynski explained.
As an outstanding example for the racistic character of the National-Socialist persecution of Roma the president of the European Roma and Travellers Forum quoted the example of Sidonie Adlersburg, who was tracked down as a ten-year old at the house of her foster parents by the Austrian social services in 1943 and brought to her biological parents in Ausschwitz, where she died shortly afterwards.
On these grounds Kawczynski supported the position of the German Federal Council of Sinti and Roma, who insists on the inscription to the memorial proposed by former German President, Roman Herzog, “The genocide against Sinti and Roma was carried for the same motives of the racial delusion, with the same determination and will to achieve a regular and complete extermination [of the Sinti and Roma] as it was done for the Jews.”
“I feel that the German Government consciously exploits the existing disagreement between different groups of victims in order not to become active”, Kawczynski said. Over the last year, the European Roma and Travellers Form has written repeatedly to the German Government and offered its mediation in the discussion about the inscription of the memorial. Last winter, the organization even offered to build a memorial under its own direction. Until today, the German Government has not reacted to this proposal.
The European-level interest representation finds an additional legitimation of its approach in the fact that the genocide of the Sinti and Roma was not only an “inner-German affair”.
“Most Roma who were murdered in the name of the National Socialist ideology lived outside Germany”, Kawczynski said. For this reason he considers it as an insult that the German federal government publicly dismissed the offer of his organization in her answer to a parliamentary question of the German Green party.
European Roma and Travellers Forum http://ertf.org