the Disillusioned kid: Thieving Gypos?
| Email | Home | Linkage | Profile |

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Thieving Gypos?

The last few weeks has seen travellers targetted by the tabloid press and an increasingly populist (if not exactly popular) Conservative Party. There is much which could be said about this persecution and the fact that what problems there are actually largely the product of government policies, many of them implemented during Michael Howard's watch. That, however, isn't what I want to focus on here. Instead I hope this post will offer a brief - but important - history lesson and help to contextualise modern treatment of travellers.

Nazi treatment of the Jews is well known and almost universally regarded as worse than contemptible. The treatment of of the Roma people's is a tragedy with which people have less familiarity. Like the Jews, many Roma were massacred by the Nazis, an effort they have describe as the Porajmos (also Porrajmos) literally Devouring. While there is some dispute about the numbers killed, Wikipedia puts the figure at beween 200 and 800,000.

The Nazis attempt to exterminate the Roma was driven by the same racial ideology as the Holocaust, which sought "racial purity." Like the Jews the Roma were herded into the ghettoes including the infamous Warsaw Ghetto. On Nvember 15, 1943 Himmler ordered that Gypsies and "part-Gypsies" were to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps." In fact, Wikipedia suggests that in some case Roma may have been treated even worse than the Jews:
According to testimonies of Jewish and Nazi witnesses, Gypsies sent to the death camps often suffered even worse than Jews. In some instances, the Nazis were so appalled by the sight of Roma arriving in the transports that they would not even let them in the gates of the camps for selection and simply murdered them by the railway platforms. In one remarkable instance, the victims were so terrified that they would be killed on the spot that they actually stormed the gates of the death camp, demanding to be allowed in—they were promptly led to the gas chambers, all the while believing that they would find sanctuary there.
The intention of this brief excursus is not to suggest that Michael Howard is the same as the Nazis, nor to underplay the very real suffering inflicted on millions of Jews. Rather it is to remind people of the depravities which can potentially result from the targetting of ethnic groups.

Those interested in finding out more about the plight of travellers today should check out the European Roma Rights Centre. Oh, and whatever you do don't buy the Sun.


A group of Romani prisoners, awaiting instructions from their German captors, sit in an open area near the fence in the Belzec concentration camp.


A Gypsy couple at the Belzec concentration camp.
|

Links to this post:

Create a Link

<< Home

Side Projects

Carnival of Anarchy
The Peace Pipe
UK Watch Blog

Acquaintances

Against the Current
Atopian.org
Culture hits and gendered bits
Daniel Randall
In The Water
Mike Wood
On The Barricades
Pizarro's Sword
Space Cat Rocket Ship
Surveillant Assemblage
TashCamUK FotoPage
The Naked Lunch
The Peace Pipe
The World of the Dynamite Lady

Strangers

Anarchoblogs
Antiwar.com Blog
Arte & Lingua
Barker in Valencia
Blairwatch
Bloggerheads
Blood & Treasure
Bombs and Shields
Boomablog
Born at the Crest of the Empire
Chase me ladies...
Chicken Yoghurt
Craig Murray
Dead Men Left
Direland
Disreputable Lazy Aliens
Empire Notes
Europhobia
Friends of Al Jazeera
Global Guerillas
Guerillas in the Midst
I Blame the Patriachy
Informed Comment
Insultadarity
Janine Booth
Lenin's Tomb
Life of Riley Blog
Media Watch Watch
Neil Shakespeare
NO2ID NewsBlog
One Hump or Two?
Otto's Random Thoughts
Perfect.co.uk
Pitch In For Uzbekistan
Registan.net
Run over by the truth
Solidarity With Iraqi Workers
Shut Up You Fat Whiner!
Sudan: Passion of the Present
Talk Politics
The Anthropik Network
The Daily (Maybe)
The Devil's Kitchen
The Disillusioned
The f-word
The Head Heeb
The Killing Train
The Revenge of Winston Smith
The Socialist Unity Blog
The Wicked Truth
Theory of Power
Things I Don't Have Time For
This (Fresh) Gringo
This Is My Truth
Thumping the Tub
Time The Dreaded Enemy
UK Watch Blog
UK Poli Blogs
underbrella
Under The Same Sun
Uzbekistan.neweurasia.net
What Fresh Hell Is This?
Where is Raed? (RIP)
Who Are You to Accuse Me?
Words and Rocks
Zeropointnine
Z-Net Blog

Neighbours

Asbo Community Space
Defy-ID
Eastside Climate Action
Faslane 365
Freecycle
Indymedia
No Borders
Nottingham Student Peace Movement
Refugee Forum
Stop the War
Sumac Centre
The Demo Project

Ivory Towers

Anarchist Studies Network
Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice
Postanarchism Clearinghouse

Miscellania

Anarchist FAQ
Antiwar.com
Chagos Discussion List
Chagos Support Forums
Electronic Intifada
Future of Iraq Portal
Index of Political Blogs
Indymedia UK
Infoshop
Iraq Occupation Focus
Pledgebank
Refuser Solidarity Network
SchNEWS
Socialist Unity Network
The New Standard
UK Chagos Support Association
UK Watch
Weekly Worker
Wikipedia
WriteToThem.com
Z-Net

The Progressive Blog Alliance

Register here to join the PBA.