The world should not forget the horrific genocide committed by Nazi Germany against the Roma"

Written for Kosovo Online by Zeljko Sajn

On today's International Roma Day, celebrated on April 8th, the Roma community, in addition to celebrating Roma culture, marks the struggle for national equality. In this centuries-long marathon, they run hindered by discrimination and enduring stereotypes, aiming to move from the shadows into their rightful place under the sun.

The world, at least today, should not forget the horrific genocide committed by Nazi Germany against the Roma. But where are we today? How much has the life of the Roma changed, is the fight for inclusion in vain, and what is the contemporary German stance on its own history?

"On the night between August 2nd and 3rd, 1944, in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, 4,300 people were killed. It was one of the horrors of the genocide committed by Nazi Germany against the European Roma and Sinti – the Porajmos," begins the article "Nazi Genocide against the Sinti and Roma," published by Deutsche Welle on August 2nd, 2021. However, this is just a drop in the ocean of what Nazi Germany and the Axis powers did to millions of Slavs, Jews, and Roma. Hunger, disease, and violence were hallmarks of this death camp, and today, unfortunately, the world political scene not only exhibits hypocrisy but also attempts at a reincarnation of Nazi ideology across Europe. These political moves revive traumas passed down from generation to generation, supported by the stories of survivors, preserved documents, and horrific photographs.

Charlie Chaplin, one of the pioneers of cinema and the greatest filmmaker of all time, who personally felt Hitler's devaluation of human worth simply for being of Roma descent, would probably be inspired to write a new screenplay for a film backed by today's German government's attitude towards the genocide of Slavs, Jews, and Roma, and the dreadful hypocrisy and attempts to accuse Serbs of being a genocidal people for crimes in Srebrenica. Let us not forget that the Serbian people, along with Jews and Roma, were on the list of Slavic peoples for genocidal destruction by Nazi Germany, using various weapons, tools, and chemicals, even to the extent of making soap from the bodies of these people to build a pure Aryan race. The Law on Pure Race, passed in Nuremberg, was also adopted by Bulgarian Tsar Boris III in the parliament of his country, and today's Bulgarian politicians have entered North Macedonia with a fascist boot and opened a Bulgarian cultural center in Ohrid that glorifies his image and his (in)actions.

Regarding the adoption of the resolution "Combating the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism, and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance" at the 78th session of the UN General Assembly, Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, at his traditional annual conference in Moscow on January 18th this year, said:

"It was adopted by an overwhelming majority of votes, despite the West's tricks. But I want to highlight the fact that for the second time in a row, Germany, Italy, and Japan voted against this document. These are the Axis countries, which at one time, after being defeated in World War II, publicly repented for the crimes committed during the war and assured everyone that it would not happen again. The fact that these two countries have voted against the resolution demanding the prevention of the revival of Nazism for the last two years raises serious considerations and questions about the direction in which these ideological processes are developing, not only in those states but also in the West as a whole."

Is this not proof of hypocrisy and not just an attempt at trampling history but also its resurgence on the contemporary scene?

On the other hand, Germany, the Axis power leader of World War II, a country that genocidally destroyed Slavic peoples, Jews, and Roma, especially during World War II, is now initiating a resolution on the genocide of victims in Srebrenica by Serbs. It concerns the same Serbs whom Nazi Germany applied genocidal policies to under the Law on Pure Race – including newborns, women, and the elderly population. It's the same nation that, on the orders of Alexander von Ler, was bombed on April 6th, 1941, including the National Library in Belgrade, the guardian of Serbian identity records. Where is the state and national morality of Germany in this?

When speaking of the moral stance of the German nation, it's crucial to remember that Germany bombed Serbia in the Great War, then the Kingdom of SHS and SFR Yugoslavia, and in all three cases, was the aggressor. Notably, in 1999, as a NATO member, it violated its constitution – a special law that it must not participate in aggression against other countries, and the Constitutional Court of Germany proposed that the Bundestag allow military intervention over Yugoslavia. Instead of stating that its special law forbids this – if for no other reason, then at least on moral principles due to the atrocities committed against the Serbian people in World War I, World War II, and in 1999, when FR Yugoslavia was bombed with depleted uranium, a country where, among others, Serbs, but also Roma, were victims of that attack.

We cannot forget Germany's active participation in the war in Ukraine, from which, along with Slavic peoples, Roma also had to seek refuge under foreign skies. Neonazis active today in Ukraine committed genocidal crimes during World War II in Ukraine. Based on just one testimony of Roma at the International Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, neonazis during World War II surrounded a Roma village in Ukraine and burned it entirely. An immobile old man burned in his house, among a large number of injured and dead.

Unlike Genscher and Kohl, top statesmen who imprisoned the historical injustice committed by their country against innocent people so it would never again see the light of day, the current German leadership has cracked open the doors of history and released the outlines of the character of Nazi Germany into the air by supporting Netanyahu in depriving civilians in Palestine, but also by not voting for the resolution "Combating the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism, and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance," along with launching a resolution in the UN that Serbs are a genocidal people.

The global political scene is obviously not inclined towards justice and equality. The dirty past has not died, but nor has the fight for a piece of the same sky and the same sun that all people in the world equally deserve. In the end, what does "Rom" actually mean? Translated from their native language, which is on the path to standardization, Rom means: human. Let's try to grant the Roma, as well as everyone else, that status.