1st of June
I attended the launch of Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month 2010 at the Arts Pavilion Gallery, Mile End Arts Park, London and so the exhibition “The Holocaust against the Roma Sinti and Present Day Racism in Europe,” which has been brought to London specially for GRTHM this year.
Here is a short introduction to the exhibition and to the Roma and Sinti
“Roma and Sinti have been living in Europe for centuries. They form old-established and
historically deep-rooted ethnic minorities in the individual countries. The way of life of the
Roma and Sinti in their native countries is totally different from the popular ideas and clichés about “gypsies”.
The Holocaust against the Roma and Sinti represents a fundamental break with history, as
the ethnic minority had been integrated into the society of the majority for centuries. On the basis of the National Socialist racial ideology, Roma and Sinti were gradually deprived of their rights, their basis for the provision of their families and finally deported to the death camps.
The objective of the policy of mass murder organised by the National Socialist state was the extermination of the ethnic minority from its youngest to its oldest members. Hundreds of thousands of Roma and Sinti fell victim to the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Europe – a crime which is unique in history and which is still unimaginable in its extent.
The experience of the Holocaust has etched itself deeply into the collective remembrance of the Roma and Sinti minorities. The majority of the populations in their respective homelands, however, has no awareness of the dimension of this crime. To this day it has been banished from the public remembrance of the European nations. Failure to initiate an extensive historical assessment have, therefore, enabled the Nazi’s propaganda’s preconceptions about the minority to linger on, virtually unaltered, in its virulence. The prejudicial structures, which still define the image of the Roma and Sinti today, have been significantly influenced by the inhuman racial ideology of the National Socialists and their fascist allies. The exhibition strives to make the historical roots of present day racism against the Roma and Sinti visible.”
… from the press release.
