It was in at least two aspects of a different memory than usual. Because of the Corona pandemic, the event for the General Public, has been transferred virtually in the Internet. On the other, representatives of the Evangelical Church commemorated this year in the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Germany (EKD), the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma together for the first time the victims of Nazism.
and Romani Rose, Chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, comes here every year. More than 40 Times, he went through the gate with the “Arbeit Macht frei”. “We owe this to the Victims. Auschwitz is a great cemetery for our, but also for the Jewish minority,” he said in an interview with DW. Together with Josef Schuster, the President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, the EKD Council President, reminded her in Auschwitz to 20,000 where the murdered Sinti and Roma, on behalf of the 500,000 that were killed in the time of national socialism in the whole of Europe. For the memory of them all is symbolic of the 2. August, which had been declared five years ago by the European Parliament as the “European Holocaust memorial for the Sinti and Roma”. Romani Rose also recalled that Poland has recognized the new memorial day as the first state in Europe.
In a guest post for the DW Rose emphasized, however, that Recall alone is not enough, and that racism and nationalism must be fought decisively. Europe to stand in the face of in many countries that are already established, “racist nationalism,” in front of major challenges, such as Rose. Auschwitz gemahne, “for democracy and the rule of law and racism, anti-Semitism and anti-Gypsyism, with clarity, to reject,” he said on Sunday at the concentration camp memorial.
In Auschwitz, Rose also met with representatives of the Sinti and Roma in Poland. Among them, Władysław Kwiatkowski, the Association of the Roma who participated in the preparations for this commemoration. His family lost in the war, many relatives in concentration camps or ghettos. “I have not realised until today that all these terrible things so long ago. That there was so much hate on people who are different, live differently or speak a different language.” And also he added in an interview with DW: “Not much needs to happen in order for it to come again.” His father, Roman Kwiatkowski, President of the Association of Roma in Poland, spoke of an “anarchic nationalism”, of the spreading, as if there had been Auschwitz never. “Fascism is associated with the war, but he comes in times of peace, to Power,” said Kwiatkowski.
Bedford-Strohm: right now you have to remember together
EKD President Heinrich Bedford-Strohm also now important, with the common Gedenkakt “a strong sign for the future”. It was necessary to take a Position, he said, the DW after the memorial celebrations. It was his first visit to the former German concentration camp of Auschwitz was Birkenau, and also the first of the EKD Council President at all. A visit that will leave him stunned back, “how do people other people something can do that to”.
The theologian also commented on the role of the Evangelical Church in the Second world war, and pointed out that “in Christian theology over many centuries of anti-judaismen were maintained, which have contributed to the fact that anti-Semites could try to invoke the Christian theology and to abuse them”. It is however, important to recognise that after the Holocaust, a theology was developed in the anti-Judaism no longer plays a role: “Jesus was a Jew. To forget this is a major fault within our churches, and today, it is clear to us that it is so, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer has said: he Who expels the Jews from the land, distributes Christ, from the night country.”
memorial services without the witnesses
witnesses there are, however, becoming less and less. Edward Paczkowski is the last living of Roma in Poland, the could tell of the atrocities that were perpetrated on the Sinti and Roma in Auschwitz, still. His state of health, however, for several years, no more trips to the concentration camp memorial. When he was brought to Auschwitz, he was 12 years old and as a “political prisoner” registered. At a memorial ceremony a few years ago he stated that he was not beaten, because he understood his German, proclaimed prisoner number: “You took me out of line and I was done. I had no idea, why you beat me.” He has probably only survived because its origin was not recognized, he believes.
Paczkowski was one of about 23,000 Sinti and Roma, which were brought from various countries to Auschwitz. Only about 3,000 survived. Sinti and Roma were, according to Jews and Poland, the third largest group of people in Auschwitz. “It must shame us Germans, that Sinti and Roma for decades had to wait until they were recognized as victims of national socialism”, said Bundestag President Wofgang Schäuble in a video message.
2. August 1944
This date was chosen for remembrance day because in the night of may 2. 3. August, in were murdered in 1944 in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the last 4300 inhabitants of the so-called “Gypsy camp” – women, men and children. The prisoners tried to resist, but the SS-camp administration let the resistance beat down.
in may of the same year, it was a first Roma revolt in Auschwitz came. At the time, working men and women of the camp to other concentration and labor camps in the Reich territory to be transferred. During one of these Forced recruitments made prisoners resistance by not left their barracks, despite a request of the SS men. “In the barracks, complete silence reigned. The Gypsies were waiting, with knives, shovels, iron, crowbars, and stones to be armed, on what would now come. They not left their barracks. The SS-men were puzzled,” said the witness Tadeusz Joachimowski. The action was initially canceled. The murders, however, went further.
In Auschwitz-Birkenau, over a Million people were killed by the Nazis. The Holocaust in total, at a cost of six million Jews, 500,000 Sinti and Roma life. All of you will be thinking about today, because, as Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the ARD emphasized: “We are currently witnessing a Situation in which nationalism, racism, anti-Gypsyism, anti-Semitism back in Europe to make it wider. Here, clearly show what this can lead to what is inhuman deeds, that is clear to me on such a day.”
author: Magdalena Gwozdz-Pallokat
*The post “”fascism comes in times of peace to Power”” is published by Deutsche Welle. Contact with the executives here.
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