An upcoming project: The Porjamos

I will be beginning a new project over Christmas break and that is to write a paper on the Romani Holocaust, the events that lead up to its creation, and the effects it still has on the Romani today.

Few people know of the fate of the "other victims" of the Holocaust. How can they? History text books often list the "other victims" inside parenthesis. It usually looks something like this: 'six million Jews, along with other victims (Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and Gypsies), were murdered by the Nazis during the war.'

Alas, this method of labeling marginalizes these "other victims" even further. The Nazis fought more than a two front war. They fought several wars on many fronts.The racial war the Nazis made on the world included Jews and Gypsies. The war against the spiritual world included the Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics, and any religion that spoke out against the Nazi party. The moral war they waged was against the homosexuals, and the war on the 'mental' home front took out both ends of the spectrum: the mentally handicapped and the intellectuals who dared to speak their minds. These people are all dead, and those who were marginalized by history no less dead and were no less human beings than the Jews. Life is life, regardless of who is living that life.

The Roma are currently being fingerprinted and photographed in Italy. The last time this happened, two million Gypsies were sent to the gas chambers. Now Italy has stated that they do not intend a racial war against the Roma, that they are only trying to deter crime. If the government really wants to deter crime, then they must fingerprint and photograph ALL of their citizens. It is a racist action to target one race based on stereotypes.

Unless one sees this evil for the true evil it is, to recognize its features and opinions, one will not be able to speak out against it when it happens again. Genocide has happened since World War II and will happen again unless we, as world citizens, watch for it and take action.