[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 107 (Monday, August 3, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1523]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ROMANI HOLOCAUST REMEMBERED

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                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, August 3, 1998

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I stand today to commemorate 
the tragic events of fifty-four years ago when, on the night of August 
2nd and 3rd, the Romani camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau was liquidated. In 
that single evening, 2,897 Romani men, woman and children were killed 
in gas chambers.
  Although the Roma were among those targeted for complete annihilation 
by the Nazis, relatively little is known of their horrible suffering 
before and during World War II. In fact, institutionalized 
discrimination against Roma in Germany began well before the Nazi 
regime. During the 1920's and 1930's, these practices took on an 
increasingly virulent form and policies similar to those instituted 
against Germany's Jews were also implemented against Roma: race-based 
denial of the right to vote, selection for forced sterilization, loss 
of citizenship, incarceration in work or concentration camps, and, 
ultimately, deportation to and mass murder at death camps.
  During the war itself, at least 23,000 Roma were brought to Auschwitz 
and almost all of them perished in the gas chambers or from starvation, 
exhaustion, or disease. Some also died at the hands of sadistic SS 
doctors, like Joseph Mengele. Elsewhere in German-occupied territory, 
Roma were killed by special SS squads or even regular army units or 
police, often simply shot at the village's edge and dumped into mass 
graves. Although it has been very difficult to estimate both the size 
of the pre-war European Romani population and war-time losses, some 
scholars put the size of the Romani population in Germany and German-
occupied territories at 942,000 and the number of Roma killed during 
the Holocaust at half a million.
  Unfortunately, after World War II, the post-Nazi German Government 
strongly resisted redressing past wrongs committed against Roma, 
seeking to limit its accountability. In addition, Roma have been 
discriminated against in court proceedings and their testimony has 
often been viewed as, a priori, unreliable. The first German trial 
decision to recognize that Roma were the victims of genocide during the 
Third Reich was not held until 1991, and Roma faced discrimination in 
seeking to re-establish German citizenship after the war. Moreover, 
since the war Roma have continued to face discrimination throughout the 
European continent and, in the post-Communist period, their plight was 
worsened.
  In light of this deteriorating situation, I chaired a hearing, 
convened by the Helsinki Commission, on Romani human rights on July 21. 
I asked one of our witnesses, Dr. David Crowe, why so little is known 
about the Romani experience during the Holocaust. In answering, he 
noted several things. First, he said the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum 
has devoted some attention to this issue. He said that the lack of 
attention to this issue reflects the ingrained prejudice throughout the 
Western world toward the Roma, and he said Roma scholarship on this 
subject is just beginning.
  But how much attention can Roma themselves give to writing about 
yesterday's tragedies, when every day continues to be a struggle for 
survival? One writer has described the efforts of Emilian Nicholae, a 
Rom who painstakingly compiled the oral history of Roma Holocaust 
survivors in his Romanian village--only to have those handwritten 
testimonies destroyed during an anti-Roma pogrom in Romania in 1991. 
Not surprisingly, Dr. Ian Hancock, a Romani representative who also 
presented expert testimony before the Commission, asserted, ``What do 
Roma want? The top of the list is security.'' Fifty years after the end 
of World War II, it is long overdue.

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