Can a memorial end discrimination?

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Created on Sunday, 28 October 2012 00:00

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Can a memorial end discrimination?

28 October 2012

Sinti and Roma have fought for a Holocaust memorial in Germany for decades, not only because they were victims of genocide, but also because they still face discrimination today. Their wish has finally been granted.

"When they unveil the memorial now, the tragic thing is that many of the survivors will not be able to see it," said Silvio Peritore, member of the Central Council of Roma and Sinti in Germany.

{sidebar id=11 align=right}One of these, said Peritore, was 85-year-old Franz Rosenbach, a former forced laborer and Auschwitz survivor who spoke of his experiences in schools and campaigned for the memorial. He died just days before the memorial was opened.

The German state has taken a long time to acknowledge the Nazi genocide against Sinti and Roma - for many, far too long.

A Heidelberg exhibition has systemically covered the genocide of Sinti and Roma since 1997. Peritore joined the team a year later to work in the documentation and culture center. "In many memorials, the murder of Sinti and Roma was just a historical footnote to the Jewish Holocaust, partly because the study of this issue was neglected, either unconsciously or consciously," he said.

The issue is not simply adding up victims - six million murdered Jews versus 500,000 Sinti and Roma. "What does a memorial express? It is an acknowledgement of the victims. It is showing responsibility for the history that resulted from the Holocaust," said Peritore.

But the Sinti and Roma are clearly still an unloved minority, which has meant they have long been denied their recognition as victims of genocide. That, at any rate, is what people like Rosenbach felt. "They ask themselves, why don't they want that?" said Peritore. By "they," he means that belong to mainstream German society.

Difficult questions and painful answers

The Heidelberg exhibition receives around 15,000 visitors a year - mainly school classes and students, but also a few police cadets, who may have to deal with so-called criminal "gypsies" later. Armin Ulm is a researcher at the documentation center. He explains that the cliches about Roma and Sinti go back centuries.

"It's a phenomenon that has existed since the Sinti and Roma migrated to Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. Although they were granted positive characteristics too, shown by romantic clichés like the figure of Carmen [the passionate 'gypsy' in the George Bizet opera], but there were also negative images, the stealing gypsy, the palm-reading gypsy. "

These ideas have lasted. The term "gypsy" first appeared in medieval chronicles. "The word appears in the chronicle of the town of Hildesheim, for example," Ulm said. The word appears in several documents in different forms, although often it is unclear who is actually meant, since the Sinti and Roma have generally not used it to describe themselves. Most consider it derogatory.

Minorities have a right to differentiation

"How could gypsy clichés have survived until today?" Peritore asks, and it is clear that does not mean the question rhetorically. There are 12 million Roma and Sinti in Europe, and in many countries, including those in the European Union, they are still marginalized.

"In countries like Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, Roma and Sinti are denied basic human rights," Peritore said. "They don't have equal access to the core areas of life - occupation, health care, a decent home." He added that Sinti and Roma are discredited, criminalized, and scapegoated in many central and southern European countries. Peritore also claimed that EU funds meant to help the community often disappear into dark channels, rather than invested in infrastructure projects that would improve the lives of Sinti and Roma.

His criticisms do not spare western Europe. "Here in Germany, when we hear about a 'Roma problem,' then we're talking about people searching for a safe, dignified economic existence. That is a justified hope," he said. But here too they are seen as a security risk, he argued - as in 2010, when President Nicolas Sarkozy allegedly defied French and EU law and deported Sinti and Roma.

Peritore also accuses Germany of deporting some Roma and Sinti to Kosovo, even though they are threatened with persecution there, and had already established themselves in German society. He argues that where Roma and Sinti are offered the same opportunities, they follow the same paths as other members of society. "That contradicts the claims of those who have make sweeping assertions against Sinti and Roma," he said. "Those who say that all the programs and projects are useless, because they allegedly conflict with [Sinti and Roma] culture. That's how we expose that as lies, by showing that things work out if people get a fair chance."

Memorial against marginalization

The genocide exhibition includes many pictures of Sinti and Roma from before 1933. They show scenes of family life, some of them look almost bourgeois. They show people who had arrived at the middle class of society. But it did not save them from murder and persecution.

My grandparents and their four children survived," Peritore said. "They were taken to a ghetto in occupied Poland in May 1940, along with 2,500 other German Sinti and Roma." As a trained telegraph technician, his grandfather had to maintain communications equipment, which gave him contact with Polish partisans. That meant he could flee from the ghetto with his wife and children and disappear among Polish farmers. After the war, his family then returned home to the southern German town of Karlsruhe. The rest of his family were sent to a death camp in 1943 and murdered.

"Serious scholars have long since proved that there was a second Holocaust," said Peritore. "They were the completely identical racist motives, the identical criminal apparatus - the same murder methods in the same places, carried out systematically and efficiently." But the first German chancellor to acknowledge this was Helmut Schmidt, in 1982.

After it was decided that there would be no common remembrance for all the victims of the Holocaust, the German parliament voted to establish a memorial to the Roma and Sinti. But then there was a bitter row - the government, historians, and the representatives of the minority could not agree on details.

For the Central Council of Sinti and Roma, the issue is not just the belated acknowledgement of the past, but responsibility for the present and the future - to prevent further discrimination and marginalization. "If there's something to be learned, then maybe it's that. But maybe that's too much to ask," Peritore said, the sadness audible in his voice.

Date 23.10.2012

Author Birgit Görtz / bk

Editor Simon Bone

Source: Deutsche Welle

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Uncovered files shed light on Hitler's Wehrmacht

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Created on Sunday, 21 October 2012 00:00

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Uncovered files shed light on Hitler's Wehrmacht

17 Oct 2012

DW: The Wehrmacht and the war of extermination instigated and led by the National Socialists - 67 years after the end of the Second World War, one would think that research on the issue has been exhausted. But that is obviously not the case. You discovered and investigated files and documents in the US, which people here knew nothing about.

{sidebar id=11 align=right}Felix Römer: There is a large tranche of files, which we knew nothing about until now, from a listening station close to Washington called Fort Hunt. The US military intelligence service interned around 3,000 Wehrmacht soldiers there between 1942 and 1945, kept them under observation, and secretly recorded them in their cells using hidden microphones. A vast swath of files containing over 102,000 pages of transcripts and examination reports was produced. It is a massive boost for research into the mentality of the Wehrmacht, since here you can hear Wehrmacht soldiers speak in their original tone - and about every topic imaginable.

The documents lay - accessible, but ignored for the most part - since the 1970s in the US National Archives. How does one approach them as a historian today? How did you unlock this substantial amount of material?

It was only possible now due to generous support from the Fritz Thyssen Foundation and the Gerda Henkel Foundation. That made it possible to create an entire research team charged with combing and evaluating the files. First of all, we entered the 102,000 pages from Fort Hunt - which were my responsibility - into databases and then the job was to critically read and evaluate the sources. It took us many years. But there was no other way to read these documents.

What type of soldiers, officers, captains were they? Were they just ordinary men or fanatical and brutal Nazi perpetrators?

That's a difficult question, which I can't answer definitively. The indoctrination of the Wehrmacht is one of the most controversial issues in German history. But because of the new sources, we can now build realistic images of the Wehrmacht, especially with regards to the indoctrination of German troops. This aspect was often given too much weight in earlier investigations. But now we can measure the extent of ideological indoctrination more realistically.

We see that the many Wehrmacht soldiers only had a very superficial political consciousness. But that does not mean that they were not influenced by National Socialist ideology. The transcripts from Fort Hunt show that the Wehrmacht was not a through-and-through political army - but it was not an army like any other. They had a political background. And many positions were occupied by political soldiers. Among them were many of the officers and non-commissioned officers, who stamped their mark on all levels of the Wehrmacht hierarchy. Through that hard core, the military leaders of the Wehrmacht led according to National Socialist ideology, without every ordinary private having to be a staunch National Socialist.

When you say that not every Wehrmacht soldier was a fanatical National Socialist, does that not decrease the level of blame that these people have been apportioned?

It's not about placing blame here, but about analyzing the soldiers' actions. It's about how a military machine functioned. We want to better understand it. In the past, research approaches were in part too one-sided, especially the interpretation that every single soldier perpetrated war crimes because he was a staunch National Socialist. But with that, the social dynamics, which are extremely important in an army, were forgotten. We also see in the transcripts that soldiers often perpetrated crimes and then thought about the sense in them after the fact. In many cases, they simply did what all the others had done.

Was it a certain situation, peer pressure even, that drove soldiers to commit the most horrific of crimes?

Exactly. These social and circumstantial pressures come much more to the fore in the transcripts. They build the framework for actions taken during the war. However, the soldiers could behave differently within this framework. The individual's intent and individual responsibility come into play here. For a long time the assumption of a "clean Wehrmacht" held weight. In Germany, this myth was put to rest as late as 1995 with an exhibition on the topic. Did you also look into this myth?

The transcripts from Fort Hunt confirm a lot of what we already knew from existing research into the Wehrmacht concerning war crimes. But they are not suitable for quantifying the acts or the extent of the crimes. They just show how the soldiers talked about them. The value of the documents lies above all in their depiction of how soldiers viewed war crimes, how they thought about them. There we can add new facets to existing research and show how arbitrarily these soldiers experience violence and what they thought about it.

An especially interesting aspect is the perspective of Wehrmacht soldiers on the Holocaust. There it is confirmed that the majority of soldiers knew very well and had heard rumors - in principle, everyone could have known about it who wanted to know. But it also shows that the Holocaust was not popular within the army. However the war crimes are not the issue that we can read in relation to this. The transcripts illustrate a broad range of life in the Wehrmacht and make possible such a detailed picture of the mentality of this army.

Did you actually find a significant proportion of voices expressing dissent and critique, which the soldiers themselves participated?

Yes, there are a significant number of those voices. These views are particularly numerous in relation to the Holocaust. Many soldiers, discussing the genocide of the Jewish people, express criticism and reject it. It is actually often soldiers who were not perpetrators themselves, but who had just heard about it. But those who were directly involved tend to take a different view. With them there is more the need to justify their actions after the fact, and to maintain a positive self-image. This type of reaction is part of the automatism of violence.

Time and time again after the war, former members of the Wehrmacht plead that they were only obeying orders. Is that an argument that you found in the transcripts?

No, that only appears very rarely in our sources. Other things were much more important to the soldiers: their social circle, the group, their comrades, their leaders. They wanted to prove themselves to these people. The military value system plays its part, the militant ethos of the Wehrmacht. The soldiers wanted to be good soldiers, do a good job, win medals, fulfill their duties. They are motives that one regularly hears, that have nothing to do with simply obeying orders but with their understanding of their role as Wehrmacht soldiers. But the identification with these military values was very individual, that is one of the central themes of my study.

Felix Römer, 34, is a historian at the German Historical Institute in London. His book based on the transcripts from Fort Hunt, "Kamaraden - Die Wehrmacht von innen" (Comrades - the Wehrmacht from the Inside), is published by Piper.

Date 17.10.2012

Author Interview: Cornelia Rabitz / hw

Editor Kate Bowen

Source: Deutsche Welle

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Savile Family: Our Hearts Go Out To Victims

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Created on Saturday, 27 October 2012 00:00

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Savile Family: Our Hearts Go Out To Victims

Jimmy Savile's relatives have insisted they knew nothing of his "darker side" as they expressed their sorrow for his alleged victims.

In the family's first major reaction to the scandal, the Jim'll Fix It star's nephew Robert Foster released a lengthy statement charting their increasing horror at the revelations about his life.

{sidebar id=10 align=right}Mr Foster, who helped organise Savile's funeral last year, tells how the family had been "proud of his achievements" but that this turned to shock as they were hit by the "firestorm of allegations".

He insisted the family had known nothing about this side of the DJ and television presenter and could not believe the claims when they emerged at the start of this month.

Mr Foster said he watched the ITV documentary which first exposed Savile as an alleged abuser "with horror". "This wasn't the man we knew and loved," he said.

As the allegations kept multiplying, the family "began to have doubts as to our own feeling towards our uncle", the retired deputy headteacher said.

"How could the person we thought we knew and loved do such a thing", he asked, and questioned how someone who did so much for charity would "risk it all doing indecent criminal acts".

As the "outrage" intensified, the family decided it had to remove the elaborate headstone on Savile's grave to avoid it becoming a target for vandals.

"The decision was a difficult one to make but we knew it was the right one," Mr Foster said.

The statement, published by the Yorkshire Post, continues: "We recognise that even our own despair and sadness does not compare to that felt by the victims.

"Our thoughts and our prayers are with those who have suffered from every kind of abuse over so many years and we offer our deepest sympathy in what must have been a terrible time for all of them."

The family acknowledged the "courage" it has taken for Savile's alleged victims to speak out know and said they understand why they did not do so sooner.

"Our hearts go out to them and we offer them our sympathy and understanding in their anguish," the relatives said. "Where will it all end? Who knows? The repercussions of this scandal are enormous."

Source: Sky News

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Cheap food imports undermine local producers

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Created on Saturday, 20 October 2012 00:00

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Cheap food imports undermine local producers

Cheap imports are a worrying sign for Germany's local produce industry. Rival foreign producers deliver food from countries with low labor and production costs, and the local industry finds itself unable to compete.

Locally produced sausages, asparagus and beer are all products typical of Germany's array of fine cuisine.

But along with traditional German food and beverages, an increasing assortment of imported goods can now be found in any number of Germany's discount supermarket chains, fruit and vegetable shops and corner stores.

The low cost of importing foodstuffs from overseas is an economic boost for retailers - they are able to offer cheap, imported products, even when produce is not in season locally.

But underselling local producers with cheap imports puts local industry at risk, says Anke Klitzing, spokesperson for Slow Food Germany.

For locals involved in the produce supply chain, from truck drivers to farmers, overseas imports are ruining years of hard work and established businesses.

"If more foods were to come from local and regional sources, then this would, for one, benefit the local economies. More money would stay in the region, creating value and employment," said Klitzing.

Trend driven by consumers

However, money is not the only driving force for German producers competing with cheap imports. The quality of the end product which makes its way to the consumer's table is also of great importance, says Klitzing.

"The value of buying local or regional food is not only about the economy. Shorter distances from the farm to the table means produce can be harvested closer to peak ripeness, when it is most nutritious, because it does not have to withstand extended transport and storage."

Germany is not alone when it comes to importing food which can just as easily be produced on home soil. Increasingly more westernized countries are choosing to import frozen or processed foodstuffs from countries like Thailand, China and Nicaragua because of the markedly cheaper costs.

{sidebar id=12 align=right}Klitzing says this trend is being driven by consumers. "A large part of the food system, particularly production, processing and distribution, is heavily market-orientated and guided predominantly by concerns about price," she said.

"Food, like any other commodity, must be cheap."

Growing industry

Despite an increase in global fuel prices, shipping and general overheads, a spokesperson from the World Trade Organization (WTO) told DW that it is often still less expensive to import from countries where labor is cheap and production costs are low.

China is one such example. Employees earn 0.93 to 1.86 euros ($1.20 to $2.40) per day working in fruit and vegetable fields - far less than the 110 euros a day earned by workers doing a similar job in Germany.

China is one of the fastest growing sources of food imports globally, and was the biggest source of imported goods to Germany in 2011.

Close to 9 percent of the Germany's imports, the World Bank reports, came from China last year, and 7 percent of that consisted of foodstuffs – namely, rice, tinned foods and frozen fruits.

Imported goods

Another example is strawberries. Although Germany is among Europe's major strawberry producers, cheaper imports of the fruit are being shipped from China, the world's second-largest producer of strawberries.

Frozen fruit is sold for much less than is demanded by local farmers who are unable to compete with the cheap operating and labor costs of their overseas rivals, says Klitzing. By freezing the strawberries, Chinese producers are able to make them more compact and less fragile, and thus easier for global transport.

German consumers, however, have become critical of cheap foreign food imports in recent weeks, after an outbreak of the norovirus was traced back to frozen Chinese strawberries which had been brought into the country.

The illness, the largest food-caused incidence of gastroenteritis in Germany to date, affected some 11,000 students across five eastern German states, according to the WTO. Several critics have pointed to lax enforcement of food safety standards in China as the reason for the virus' outbreak.

Food safety laws are not uniform across international borders, despite the flow of goods across them, says Jan Kleinheisterkamp, a senior law lecturer at the London School of Economics, in an interview with DW.

"The problem is that in China, it is Chinese law governing," he said.

Food regulation

But the onus of ensuring food safety standards are met lies with the country receiving the goods and the companies importing and distributing the food, according to the WTO.

"It's about identifying the problems that can affect your food and preventing them from happening," said Peter Ben Embarek, a food safety scientist with the World Health Organization. "This is a specific process every producer of food must apply."

As well as self-regulated industry testing of imported foodstuffs, an official from the German Office for Consumer Protection and Nutritional Safety confirmed to DW that state monitoring does occur "in addition" to that undertaken by import companies.

The food preparation company Sodexo, which served the contaminated strawberries to the German schoolchildren, issued a statement offering an apology for the incident but blamed one of its subcontractors for the outbreak.

Affected students will be compensated, according to the company, as prosecutors begin an investigation into the exact cause of the virus in the imported strawberries.

Date 13.10.2012

Author Jessie Wingard, Sonya Angelica Diehn

Editor Martin Kuebler

Source: Deutsche Welle

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