Monument for Sinti and Roma victims of Nazis highlights German government hypocrisy

[jettakd]

By Bernd Reinhardt
29 October 2012

On October 24, a central memorial for the 500,000 Sinti and Roma murdered by the Nazis was unveiled in Berlin. The monument is sited immediately next to the Bundestag (parliament) building. It is also close to the Holocaust memorial for the Jews murdered during Nazi rule

Comments

[pleasure_past]

they had not been persecuted in the Third Reich on racist grounds, but because they displayed criminal tendencies.

Unlike, you know, the Germans who killed 6 million people. Yes. Clearly it is the Roma and the Sinti who lack moral instinct here.

Even though they eventually admitted it was racism, it's still obviously too little too late. This is obviously just another political ploy to seem ~enlightened~ without really sacrificing anything or changing any behavior/policies.

...If you need me, I'll be despairing for humanity.

[spiegel11th]

Fair enough - your earlier comments annoyed me, but this is a fair point: that saying 'Germans' rather than 'Nazis' not only unreasonably blames the entire German population (which of course includes lots of the Jews, communists, disabled, and homosexuals that were victims of the regime), but also excludes from blame Nazi sympathisers and colluders in other countries.

For my own family history (even though no one asked *cough*), my great-grandfather was a highly decorated air force officer; my great-grandmother spent the war keeping her head as far down as humanly possible; and my grandfather was drafted to the Russian front in the last years of the war (which left him with permanent trauma).
I have no idea if any of them could have done anything against the Nazis, but I do know why they didn't - my great-grandmother, my grandfather, and my great-aunt all fell under the Nazi classification of Jewish. Members of my grandfather's extended family were harassed, thrown out of their homes, or even sent to death camps. It is very

[fuck_of_nature]

Loved your comment. A lot of people like to say the everyday German knew nothing about what was going on, but it really wasn't true. There was a lot of willful denial, but also a lot of simply looking the other way or even participating from the German (and other) communities.

[pleasure_past]

...Replying to myself because I have realized belatedly that I suck at antecedents. "This" was referring to the monument, not the 1982 recognition of the racism inherent in genocide.