HISTORY AND REMEMBRANCE
Why teach about Roma and Sinti?
The Holocaust erased large proportions of Roma and Sinti communities in multiple countries; some populations virtually disappeared. Education means teaching people what they do not yet know. In this sense, Holocaust education has consistently failed its students -- in poll after poll, Romani scholars and allies find that it is truly rare for a person who has learned about the Holocaust to say anything of substance (or anything at all) on Romanies as a result.
Teaching about genocide is meaningful when connections are drawn to ongoing human rights issues and dangers. FORSHV believes that students and others should learn about multiple types of genocide, slavery (including Roma slavery), ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, and colonial violence. This includes, among others:
Genocides and family separations of indigenous peoples
Rwanda
Armenians
Cambodia
Ethnic cleansing and genocide in the Balkans
Rohingya people
All victims of Nazi persecution - ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, Slavs, gay victims, political prisoners, and people targeted for religious reasons, notably Jehovah's Witnesses.
We stand against racism, anti-Semitism, religious intolerance, homophobia, transphobia, environmental injustice, and ableism. When we teach about the ongoing effects of fascist and other genocidal ideologies, students can better understand today's world. In the case of Europe, knowing that both Jewish and Romani children were subject to the Nuremburg Laws and systematically murdered in the Holocaust alerts us to the constant threat of violence under which they live today. Knowing that Roma, Sinti, and Jews were considered racially inferior a hundred years ago underscores how little Europe has progressed, since Romani children are still commonly considered as genetically inferior by school leaders, politicians, and those active in the helping professions.
Just as hundreds of thousands of murdered Roma and Sinti remain as footnotes in general Holocaust historiography and commemoration, the media pay extremely little attention to the hate crimes, forced sterilization, and structural violence that have been committed against Romani communities since 1990. Meanwhile, in the U.S., some police departments boast of their "Gypsy crime" initiatives with impunity, and Romani children are typically afraid to share their ethnic heritage at school -- so great is the stigma against "Gypsies."
We want Holocaust education to change that. We want all individuals learning about the Holocaust to know who Romani people are as a diverse ethnic group. Tokenistic mentions of Roma and Sinti victims do not suffice, and are almost always misleading. Making connections between the stereotypes that led to genocide and the stereotypes people hold today translates to better critical thinking. And as for Holocaust denialists, their conspiracy theories will stand exposed as all the more absurd when Roma and Sinti voices are properly represented in genocide commemorations.
The experience of Roma and Sinti in the Holocaust (Romani terms include Samudaripen and Porajmos, but survivors usually use other words) has not been "forgotten." Rather, more often than not, it has been erased from mainstream Holocaust remembrance. It is imperative to make up for decades of lost time, so that Holocaust education can truly make sense going forward.
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