The Forgotten Genocide
https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Genocide-Europes-Gypsies-World/dp/B07FZ8K1TS
“This is the first documentary film that tells the forgotten story of the annihilation of the Gypsies by the Nazis and their allies from one end to the other of Europe. With interviews of the survivors and archival footage never seen before the film points out the architects of this terrifying genocide and goes through all the territories where the extermination took place.” The Forgotten Genocide: Europe’s Gypsies in World War II
And yet still throughout Europe as well as other regions of the world we still are immensely oppressed. As the 1970’s Cher song quoted “Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves.” That unfortunate moniker is still slapped on our foreheads practically be we full, mixed blood or anything in between. As with all Brown and Black peoples anything goes wrong we’re the first to be blamed for it always were the least in number the more so… not so unlike how Nazi’s or any bigots view those different than themselves. As we’ve seen we have a long way to go until all of us are seen as equal, worthy of respect, decency, and all Human Rights. By the time the holocaust was over over 40% of all European based Gypsies were murdered overall it has been estimated over three quarters (75%) were slaughtered by Hilter’s and Mussolini’s regime (yes he was guilty of war crimes as well towards the same peoples Hitler abhorred).. and that terminology is not used lightly as it truly was arbitrary barbarianism. To hopefully avoid from another annihilation of innocent peoples we must look at the past to ensure this same mentality is never allowed to occur again as we have seen it time and time again despite the past- whether we are speaking of the American Holocaust that resulted in the murder of 100 Million Indigenous peoples beginning with colonization in 1492, the genocide and injustices against First Nations people of Canada, European Holocaust, the Human Rights Atrocities against the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia, American Segregation, the Apartheid of South Africa, Cambodia, Darfur, Rwandan Genocide, the Genocide of Yazidis to give few of a multitude of examples and finally what has invoked the lives of People of Color finally mattering due to the profiling of Brown and Black Lives somehow equaling Criminality. All the while the truth is the shoe has always been on the other foot throughout history more so than not. The core devaluing of human life is all the same, to impoverish, rape, sterilize, destroy, and or murder those of a “lesser” persons. Shortly before the European Holocaust German “Anthropologists” ruled that upwards of 90% of German citizens were of “Mixed race with racially inferior peoples” therefore they should all be exterminated. Throughout Europe there still till this day exist laws against Gypsy peoples and the people are still being rounded up to remove those who live traditionally from their camps and homes. For our world to advance past this ignorance, fears, and hatred the past serves as a blueprint of how NOT to live nor view people based on the color of their skin instead of the content of their character as Dr. King once so eloquently said.
The Roma word for holocaust is “Porajmos” in translation it means “The devouring” or just “Devouring” because that is what not only what the genocide did but what any animosity does. It devours and destroys entirely.
