[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 44 (Wednesday, April 20, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 20, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                   ROMA AND SINTI GYPSIES REMEMBERED

                                 ______


                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 20, 1994

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, 3 years ago, the participating States of the 
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe met in Cracow, Poland 
and agreed to preserve and protect those monuments and sites of 
remembrance, including most notably exterminating camps and the related 
archives, which are themselves testimonials to tragic experiences in 
their common house. Such steps need to be taken in order that those 
experiences may be remembered, may help to teach present and future 
generations of these events, and thus ensure that they are never 
repeated. Last week, the words of the Cracow Document once again took 
on life and meaning when the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum hosted a 
special ceremony on behalf of Roma and Sinti--gypsies--who perished 
during World War II as part of a methodical and deliberate plan to 
eradicate them.
  Among those participating in this commemoration were Roma 
representatives from several countries, including our own: Bill Duna of 
Minnesota, Nicolae Gheorghe of Romania, Ian Hancock of Texas, Andrzej 
Mirga of Poland, and Klara Orgovanova of Slovakia. Others present 
included representatives of the Romanian and Slovak Embassies. I 
commend the Holocaust Museum Memorial and the Project on Ethnic 
Relations for convening this moving service and those who came forward 
to share their experiences with others. In so doing, each of these 
speakers hoped to ensure that, as declared in Cracow, the events of the 
past are never repeated. I have also been gratified to learn that at 
Auschwitz--a site that, perhaps more than any other, symbolized the 
Holocaust--a special commemoration of the Roma camp will open this 
August.
  Tragically, in recent years Roma have been faced with a new wave of 
hatred and violence. Indeed, the fall of communism has unleashed a host 
of social and economic problems in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet 
Union, for which Roma make easy scapegoats. In the Czech Republic, 
where the government has instituted a racist citizenship law that 
threatens to strip many Roma of their most basic right, Roma have been 
the subject of extrajudicial killings and specifically targeted for 
arrest by local police. In Romania, they have been torched out of their 
own homes. And in places of open conflict, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, 
Roma are left without territory, advocates, or hope.
  At the heart of these actions are the most vile and bigoted of 
perceptions. Roma have been denied education and then deemed 
ineducable; they have been shunned from the workplace and then called 
lazy; they have been barred from public restaurants and grocery stores 
and then vilified when they steal food; they have been refused housing 
and then denigrated for living in shacks; they have been banned from 
cities and villages and then defamed as shiftless wanderers; they have 
been forcibly settled as slaves and then berated for not assimilating; 
they have faced forced sterilization and then been scored for lacking 
family values.
  Worse still, these prejudices are not a thing of the past. At each 
turn, throughout Europe, Roma continue to face the self-fulfilling 
prophesies of the societies in which they reside. Opinion polls 
throughout the region have shown that Roma are the most disliked 
minority on the continent and, it may follow, the most at risk.
  Minorities have sometimes been described as a barometer of human 
freedom: when they are at risk, we are all at risk. And I believe this 
to be so. Although there has been visible and in some case impressive 
progress toward democracy in the former Warsaw Pact States, many 
European countries have discrete communities, such as the Roma, for 
whom democracy's fruits may wither on the vine.
  Fostering mutual respect in a multiethnic society is everyone's 
responsibility. But it is especially gratifying and inspiring to learn 
of the many different kinds of pilot programs and advocacy projects 
being undertaken to this end--against tremendous odds--by Roma leaders 
in their own countries. Nicolae Gheorghe, Andrzej Mirga, and Klara 
Orgavanova are to be applauded for the kinds of grassroots initiatives 
they have undertaken in their own communities; the project on Ethnic 
Relations in Princeton who deserves support for its role in fostering 
such activities.
  Mr. Speaker, later this year the Conference on Security and 
Cooperation in Europe is expected to hold a seminar devoted to the 
extraordinary burdens born by Roma in all the participating States. The 
Helsinki Commission, which I cochair, looks forward to working with 
Roma representatives and human rights advocates throughout the CSCE to 
ensure that this seminar is a success.

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