Why has the Romani holocaust received so little attention?

[gullgal]

It is estimated that somewhere between 250,000 to 500,000 European Roma and Sinti people were systematically exterminated by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. This amounts to between a quarter or a half of the entire population of Roma. They call it the devouring I believe. Yet it is rarely invoked and Roma peoole are heavily discriminated against, and there is little awareness of their historical trauma. I can't understand why. Certainly I only learnt it very late in life.

We were taught in school about the dreadful events of the holocaust. We were even taken to the cinema to see actual footage of the liberation of the camps. The footage also showed people being driven into trenches that they’d been made to dig and then shot. No hiding anything from young people in the 1960’s

I assume that the facts aren’t being taught in schools now.

Not quite sure why my comment was reported and deleted.

It is factual that black, gay , disabled people and Roma were disproportionately discriminated against all over and were treated terribly before , during and after the war. Very few men would have gone to war to save “the gays” or “the blacks” or whichever other category. Because in their own countries those people were seen as less than. Segregation didn’t “end” in America until the 60’s . It was illegal to be gay in England until 1967. Mentally ill and disabled people suffered extreme abuse and neglect in institutions up to the 70’s. Switzerland forcibly sterilised Roma women from the 20’s until nearly the 70’s. I can keep going.

Lots of Eastern Europeans in my neighbourhood, so many of my DCs friends are Romanian, Albanian - lovely kids but have heard them saying very racist things about those they describe as “gypsies”. This is clearly coming from their parents.

@VioletsTale ‘Very few men would have gone to war to save “the gays” or “the blacks” or whichever other category’

Men of all nationalities and orientations went to war.

It wasn’t known that the camps existed until the countries in which they were located were liberated.

I was taught about the other groups at school in the 60s.
I wouldn't consider Wikipedia a reliable source for anything tbh. Part of the issue we have today is that many people don't read books, particularly not history books. Wikipedia is easy, short, but of dubious accuracy. Ditto films, novels and television dramas. Books require effort, time and reading ability.

We were taught this in school in the 90s. Every holocaust memorial site, tv programme, book etc that I’ve come across also pays tribute to them, even where the primary focus is the Jewish victims. Only incredibly ignorant people don’t know about the wider atrocities ime.

Yes they did, but they had to hide their orientation or were marginalised/treated worse if they were a different race.

I think it’s widely known, as well as the identity of other groups targeted for mass murder, but I agree with @emptygoosenest and others that a geographically widely scattered, often poor ethnic group which traditionally doesn’t engage with formal education, or in some cases with settled society at all, is going to face more challenges in memorialising, setting up awareness programmes, writing histories, gathering testimonies etc.

I knew that a wide range of groups were targeted. What I didn't know was how terribly high the proportions were for Romani. And I'm not sure that it actually is common knowledge, though most people here seen to feel that it is

@PetrinePeople went to war because they wanted to defend our country from invasion, initially.

I knew the Roma had been targeted but like you, OP, was unaware of the sheer scale - not just numbers but the percentage of their community that was just wiped out.

If anyone wants to read a moving and honest account, I can't recommend 'And the Violins Stopped Playing' by Alexander Ramati enough. I think someone upthread touched on the importance of music within their culture and the status this afforded members.. this book doesnt hold any punches!

Thank you, I'm glad I'm not the only person for whom the scale was a surprise.

It wasn’t until 1982 that West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt formally recognised the Nazi persecution of Roma and Sinti as genocide on racial grounds. For decades, Roma and Sinti families lived in societies that had never fully acknowledged their suffering or confronted the institutions responsible for persecuting them. There is more material about the Roma and Sinti experience in a book called Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey by Isabel Fonseca, published in 1995.

There is a permanent memorial, in the Tiergarten in Berlin. The memorial itself is some kind of pool, but more affecting is the wall next to it, which has people's photos and stories on it. I particularly remember the story of a Polish Roma woman who rescued many children, including going to the scenes of mass executions of Jews and sometimes finding children still alive. She survived the war, but never got any recognition for what she did.

I find that your assumption that "these people" might steal something like that quite offensive.

That is an incredibly offensive post, particularly in the context of Romani genocide.

Wow.

You know maybe, just maybe, a thread on Roma genocide isn't quite the place to express your hatred of travelling people?

I doubt @Diamond7272 has a clue who Rom even are. The ignorance is pretty typical.

I don't have a hatred of travellers. It's when they stop and park up that they create problems.

I haven't said anything untrue. Google Cobham travellers.

If they keep travelling that's fine with me 😂

Okay you're clearly just on the windup.

I actually came on this thread to mention that there is a memorial in Berlin which is very moving. It's not far from the Holocaust memorial and worth a visit in itself.

You mean the two probably Romanitchals (that means 300 years plus born and bred English) living in social housing and connected to a (council taxed) traveler site?
First they have been massively condemned rightly by most sections of society, and second they aren't the people being discussed on this thread about genocide of European Rom in WW11.