A recap of the Youth Exchange: From Oblivion to Awareness, May 14–18, 2024 from our Peace Corps volunteer Jeff.

The project ”From Oblivion To Awareness” is funded by the EVZ Foundation and the Federal Foreign Office and in partnership with RROMA, Point of View and Amaro Drom.

Overview

I volunteer for the Regional Roma Educational Youth Association, RROMA, a non-governmental organization, NGO, in North Macedonia. We lead a Youth Exchange called “From Oblivion to Awareness”about the Roma holocaust in Berlin for 30 young adults from Germany, Serbia and North Macedonia, May 14–18, 2024. The program included several interactive workshops and visits to the Roma Memorial in Berlin and Sachsehausen Concentration Camp Memorial outside the city. This essay details my observations, what I learned, and some of my reflections.

The Pyramid of Hate

The Pyramid of Hate is the framework that we use to understand society’s progression from biased attitudes to its ultimate conclusion, genocide. As a society moves up from one level to another, it becomes increasingly difficult to step back down, to deescalate levels of hate. Once biased attitudes have solidified in a culture, it is natural that those attitudes start to be expressed in individual acts of bias. When hateful actions are seen as reasonable and become acceptable, the next step is institutionalized discrimination. Violence is then not far behind. The genocide perpetrated by the Nazis was hidden from the public behind sophisticated propaganda, but they succeeded in convincing their soldiers to carry out their heinous agenda by dehumanizing their captors.

It’s shocking to me, with the rise of fascism in the U.S. and Europe as a whole, how far up the pyramid we have come. In the U.S. we’ve always had biased attitudes, and acts of bias are commonplace. But to see institutionalized discrimination and then bias motivated violence like the 2017 Charlottesville march of White Nationalists which resulted in the death of a counter-protestor is frightening. The next step is genocide, and with the language I hear coming from Donald Trump and the Republican Party, the next step is not as far away as some may think. Just yesterday he posted a video featuring his desire to rule over a “United Reich”.

People say, “It can’t happen here.” But it can. My visit later in the week to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp did nothing to assuage my fears. There are over 50 concentration camp museums in Europe memorializing the victims of genocide all with the goal that we, as a society, must never forget. They are visited daily by thousands of people every day.

I can’t help but wonder why there are only two sites in the US that are memorials to the Japanese internment camps that existed there during WWII. The United States interred American citizens simply because they were of Japanese descent. Maybe if we were reminded regularly how far we, as a country, have already traveled up the Pyramid of Hate, we would think twice before dismissing the danger with flippant statements like “That couldn’t happen here.” And we would not allow White Nationalism the space to grow. I’m sure I’m being idealistic. But, I was angry that the first time I ever heard about the rounding up and internment of American citizens of Japanese descent was just eight years ago in the Broadway Musical: Allegiance. Why didn’t I learn about that in high school civics class? Our society has a shameful past. But if we do not talk about it, we are doomed to repeat it.

Roma History

This is a difficult topic for several reasons:

1. There is no historical record written by the Roma themselves. Nearly all of it has been discovered by analyzing the historical records of their oppressors.

2. Much of their history has been gleaned from accounting records. In a real sense, the history of the Roma was written by the bookkeepers who recorded the transactions when Roma slaves were sold, and by the law clerks who wrote down laws and decrees designed to oppress them.

3. It is impossible to study the history of the Roma without encountering pejoratives throughout the record: Gypsy, Travelers, Pikey, Tzigane, Zingara. All are derogatory and considered offensive. The Romani people call themselves “Roma” because in the Romani language it means “human”.

In response to a series of wars instigated by various conquerors, the Roma began migrating from Northwest India around the year 1000. Presumably, rather than stay and fight to defend land that they did not own, they chose to pack up everything and look elsewhere for a place to scratch out a livelihood.

Historically, the Roma have been a nomadic people, finding a place to stay for a few weeks or a few months and then moving on. They were renowned for their craftsmanship, their artistic acumen, music, and dance. Their values were wrapped up in their families. Relationships were the top priority, not the acquisition of land or the accumulation of wealth. Today there are very few nomadic Roma left.

They were entertaining, known for wonderful singing, dancing and fortune telling. They were also excellent craftsmen and some of the best-known blacksmiths. But they were here today and gone tomorrow. People who are attached to their home or town didn’t understand or trust the Roma. Are they going to steal my stuff? They were easy to make into “The Other” and to use as scapegoats. After they had left, people could blame anything on the Roma and get away with it. Since they were no longer around to defend themselves, all kinds of horrible behaviors were assigned to the Roma and the stereotypes began.

Over the centuries, Roma have been consistently denigrated, persecuted, excluded, and expelled. Starting in the 14th century and for the next 500 years, the Roma were enslaved in what is now Romania. They were banned from the Holy Roman Empire in 1501. Afterwards, any citizen could catch and kill a “gypsy” with impunity. In the seventeenth century, France decreed that all “gypsy” males could be sent to prison for life without a trial, the women should be sterilized, and children placed in poorhouses. In the eighteenth-century Spain initiated the “Great Gypsy Roundup” while Austro-Hungarian Empress Maria Theresia took Roma children from their families in an effort to force their assimilation and destroy the Roma culture. This practice continues today under the guise of “child welfare”.

In the twentieth century, Germany reached the pinnacle of the Pyramid of Hate. It started in 1899 with the creation of the Secret Information Service which became the basis for Interpol. It restricted the rights of Roma, treated them as criminals by default, and mandated identification cards, fingerprints, and photos of all Roma. This practice continued until the 1990s. A 1926 law created Roma communities and forced the Roma to live in ghettos. In 1929, they passed the Law for Combating the Gypsy Menace which provided the foundation for unwarranted arrests and detention of Roma allegedly to prevent crime.

With such a deeply ingrained public fear and distain for the Roma people, it was not difficult for the Nazi’s to implement their project plan to finally deal with “The Gypsy Problem”. Their goal was the complete elimination of the Romani people. In 1933, the Law on Protection from Dangerous Permanent Criminals implemented mass arrests of Roma identifying them with prostitutes, beggars, the homeless and alcoholics. In 1935, the Nuremburg Laws for the Preservation of German Blood and Honor stripped the citizenship of Jews and Roma. The law also forbade sexual relations between them and Germans. In 1936, they opened the Center for Racial Hygiene and Biological Research of the Population. This coincided with the opening of the first Roma detention camps. Based on their “research” on the so-called “Gypsy Question”, Dr. Robert Ritter and Eva Justin concluded that Roma did not have “pure” blood, represented a danger to German racial purity and advocated Roma extermination. In 1942, Heinrich Himmler ordered the deportation of all Roma from the ghettos to concentration camps. Two months later, the first transport of Sinti and Roma arrived in Auschwitz.

By the end of the war, the Nazi regime had murdered up to 500,000 Roma. The actual number is difficult to determine because the Nazis burned as many records as they could. Some estimate the number to be as high as 1,000,000 or more. Among the Roma who were interred in Auschwitz, only 4 survived. The German government did not officially recognize the genocide until 1982 after a group of 12 Roma initiated a hunger strike protest in the former concentration camp in Dachau in 1980.

Important Dates

* April 15 — in 2015 the European Parliament recognized the Roma Genocide as International Roma Holocaust Day, Roma Genocide Memorial Day, or Roma Genocide Remembrance Day

* May 16 — Romani Resistance Day. On this day in 1944, having been warned of an upcoming mass execution by a sympathetic German guard, 600 Roma prisoners fought off 66 armed soldiers using hammers, pickaxes, shovels and wood removed from their bunks.

* August 2 — Roma Memorial Day. On this day the Roma people remember the 3,000 Roma prisoners, mostly women, children and elderly, who were gassed and whose bodies were then burned in a pit at Auschwitz.

Stereotypes

The word Antigypsyism includes a word that is abhorrent to the Roma. Why do the Roma use it when discussing the discrimmination they face every day? The word is defined from the oppressors’ perspective. What the Roma are fighting is in fact, “Gypsium”, the idea that Roma are “gypsies”. This is not a word they invented; they were first called “gypsies” because the local people were under the misconception that the Roma had come from Egypt. While fighting discrimination against themselves, they also want to stop being labeled with a word that is hurtful. Antigypsyism is not only an external fight, it also requires education of their own community as well, because many Roma people have internalized the label and continue to refer to themselves as “gypsy”.

When discussing Antigypsyism as a whole, the stereotypes that sustain it and how to dispel them are key. Stereotypes are constructs of the mind. They are ideas that in reality don’t exist. And like all stereotypes that have been forced on minorities, they are created by the majority. Roma are doctors, lawyers, engineers and all sorts of professionals. Pablo Picasso, Charlie Chaplin, Yul Brynner, Rita Hayworth, Bob Hoskins, and Tracey Ullman were or are Roma.

The Roma have been excluded and forced to live in impoverished circumstances without sanitation infrastructure, so they are stereotyped as “filthy”. Their children have been taken away, and when Roma mothers retrieve their children, they are stereotyped as “kidnappers” and “child thieves”. “A caravan of ‘gypsies’ is on the outskirts of town. Hide your children!” They are not allowed to work so they are deemed “lazy”, “deceitful” and “thieves”. They live a nomadic lifestyle, so they are stereotyped as “vagabonds”.

Creative Activities Workshops

We played a treasure hunt game that pieced together a story of survival from WWII. The game was a prototype. It was an interesting exercise in teamwork and creativity to discover more information on the subject matter. We were the first people to try it out, so we spent some significant time providing feedback. Since it was a beta test, there were some significant logistical problems, but it was a great example of how to use interactivity and gamification in nonconventional learning.

We also got to do some creating of our owen. During this session, the group finally congealed. Everyone chose how to express themselves. The options were: Creative Writing, Painting/Drawing, Social Media, and Other.

I chose creative writing and wrote several haikus for the occasion. They are meant to be read individually with a pause for reflection.

Murdered without cause,
How could we do such a thing?
Remain vigilant.

Crisis of morals
All human beings are stained.
Blood is on our hands.

Lost to history,
Many Roma disappeared.
Bring them back to life.

Hearts ache for the dead
My responsibility
Is to not forget.

Death rained down on them.
No one could see it coming.
Not again, never.

Here where it happened.
Hear their screams in the darkness.
Into the ages

Yes. It did happen.
Forgetting is denial.
Always remember.

Pyramid of hate
It remains even today.
Break the foundation.

What? When? Who? How? Why?
Genocide without reason
I weep for mankind.

A well-kept secret
A million people murdered.
Expose the lies.

At the conclusion of the creative session, we presented our work to each other. Reading the poems, displaying the artwork, and even singing a song that some of the participants had just written. I must say I was impressed and moved. RROMA, the hosting organization, will create a digital booklet of this work to display on their website. I’m looking forward to the completion of the social media group’s project plan. They will have photos, videos, and podcasts.

Visit to the Roma Memorial

After lunch, we visited the German Memorial to the Roma Genocide. It’s in the park near the Brandenburg Gate. The memorial was designed by the Israeli artist Dani Karavan and consists of a dark, circular pool of water at the centre of which there is a triangular stone. The pool is black in remembrance of the lake at Auschwitz where so many ashes were unceremoniously dumped that it turned black. The triangular shape of the stone is in reference to the badges that had to be worn by concentration camp prisoners. The stone is retractable, and a fresh flower is placed upon it daily. In bronze letters around the edge of the pool is the poem ‘Auschwitz’ by Roma poet Santino Spinelli, although the monument commemorates all Roma and Sinti murdered during the Porajmos, the Romani word for the Roma Holocaust. Information boards surround the memorial and provide a chronology of the genocide of the Sinti and Roma.

Gaunt face
dead eyes
cold lip
quiet
a broken heart
out of breath
without words
no tears

We formed a half circle around the pool and took a moment of silence for the victims. Then I read four of my poems and we each placed a single red carnation at the pool’s edge in remembrance. It was very moving.

The memorial can be seen from the windows of the German Parliament. Sadly, it is scheduled for demolition in two years to make room for a subway station. There are no plans to relocate it. I find that appalling.

Visit to Sachsenhausen

Following an hour and a half bus ride after breakfast, we arrived at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp for a day long tour. Our tour guide, Katja Anders, did a fantastic job all day. It was a sobering visit and all the young participants handled themselves with dignity and respect. This isn’t a time for joking around or horseplay and they were all dressed appropriately as well. The more I think about them, the more I am impressed with each and every one.

The first stop was an aerial photo of the camp taken by an Ally airplane just before the camp was liberated. The large, highlighted section was the camp enclosure which included the prisoner’s camp, the Prisoner’s Camp Entrance “Tower A”, the Extermination Facilities “Station Z”, the Roll Call Area, the Infirmary Barracks, the Prison, Solitary Confinement, the Mess Hall, the Industrial Yard, and the Commandant’s Headquarters. Just outside, also highlighted was the Inspection Facility where the prisoners were initially received.

Around the camp were the Commandant’s Family Residence, the Main Arsenal, the Vehicle Depot, the Brickworks, the German Troop Barracks, the Communications Unit and a Villa for the Concentration Camp Inspector.

The prisoners built the camp themselves. More than 200,000 people were interred there between 1936 and 1945 including about 20,000 women. This was a working camp rather than an extermination camp so “only” 20–30,000 people died. There were 60 barracks for the prisoners each housing 150 to 400 people. The number of residents in a building depended on the status of the prisoners there. Political prisoners had the highest status fewest inhabitants, but the “anti-socials”, criminals, homosexuals, and inferior races; Jews, Roma and Sinti, had the most. In the most cramped quarters, people were made to sleep on the floor with a little straw. Prisoners reported that it was impossible to move while sleeping. There were also Jehovah’s Witnesses interred at the camp.

The Nazis maintained different classes of prisoners on purpose to keep them hating each other. Each barrack had a lead prisoner who was responsible for keeping order in the unit. There were only 8 toilets and 2 sinks for washing, so fights would erupt periodically. Also, if an officer decided that he didn’t want to see a particular prisoner anymore, he would inform the lead who would have to “get rid of him”. The Nazis ordered prisoners to kill each other often. Documented forms of torture included drowning in toilets, tying a prisoner’s hands behind their backs and hanging them on a pole by their wrists, waterboarding, etc.

The concentration camp became an important resource for the Nazi war effort. The prisoners worked for the Nazis making munitions, bricks, and other building materials. They were also made to work in factories in the town. Each day they were marched out of the camp pass the nice houses of the German officers which was itself a type of psychological torture. The brickworks, just outside the confinement area became particularly feared by the prisoners because it was there that extensive torture and many prisoner deaths occurred.

“Station Z”, the extermination and cremation facility, was used to murder thousands of Soviet POWs. Under the guise of a medical exam, they were made to stand naked in front of a wall to measure their height, then an officer outside would shoot them in the neck through a hole in the wall. This was extremely efficient psychologically for the Germans because the soldiers in the room didn’t pull the trigger, and the soldiers on the outside didn’t have to see the people they were killing.

Visiting Sachsenhausen was particularly poignant for me as it forced me to confront my own personal prejudices. At the point that the tour guide mentioned how Jehovah’s Witnesses were imprisoned at the camps, I whispered an inappropriate joke a friend about how at least the Nazis got something right. My friend immediately rebuked me. “Yeah, it’s funny, but just wrong. Nobody deserves to die.” That’s what good friends are for, to point out your flaws when necessary. But the universe didn’t stop there. I stumbled across three specific memorials to Jehovah’s Witnesses while I visited the camp exploring on my own. The last one nearly brought me to tears. In the corner of the basement of the mess hall was a plaque next to a display of part of an urn. The plaque read something like this: In this nook was found a collection of unidentifiable human remains except for this piece of an urn which contained the name of a Jehovah’s Witness. I asked Katja what the Nazis had against them, and she explained that the Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to do the Nazi salute, venerate the Fuhrer, or serve the Reich. So, they were arrested and made to serve against their will. Many died here.

I can think what I want about their religion, but the Jehovah’s Witnesses had the courage of their convictions. I must respect that. And I must respect their decision to not recite the United States Pledge of Allegiance as a matter of conscious commitment. Many paid the ultimate price for that commitment during WWII.

In addition, Sachsenhausen and the 50+ Concentration Camps throughout Europe serve an important function. They remind us to examine ourselves. The memorial forced me to look at my own prejudiced attitudes, internalized stereotypes, and biases. We all need to remember that the Pyramid of Hate starts with prejudiced attitudes and the ultimate end is genocide. Never forget.

Disclaimer: The opinions in this essay are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Peace Corps, the United States government or the Regional Roma Educational Youth Association.