International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, in seeking the Government’s priorities, which were so admirably set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, I also want to draw attention to some of the victims of the Nazi regime who are less remembered. I refer to the Romani population of Europe, called by themselves Roma. I say this without wanting in any way to diminish the enormity of the Shoah, and the memory of those of my Polish grandfather’s family who died in Auschwitz. I should declare that I am chair of the Department for Education stakeholder group on the education of Gypsy, Traveller and Roma children, and I am president of other relevant organisations which are shown in the register.

I hope the Minister will tell us how the Government’s new Holocaust Commission will deal with the Roma genocide. Can he tell us whether the Government have invited any UK Roma organisation to be affiliated with the International Alliance? One of the aims of its committee on the genocide of the Roma is to find ways of drawing Roma representatives into its working processes.

I do not think that the public as a whole are aware that a quarter of the Roma population of mainland Europe were killed by the Nazis, or cares much that the descendants of those who remained are still harried, persecuted and sometimes killed because of their race throughout the European mainland. There is a history of ignorance. Little regard was paid even by the Nazis to what they were doing. In contrast to the meticulous documentation and photographing of Jewish victims, few records were kept of the Roma. Some think that this is because, ironically enough, the Roma were more Aryan than most Germans, being descended from 15th-century migrants from the Punjab, which presented a problem to Nazi racial theorists.

While the fate of the Jewish victims of the concentration camps and the gas chambers was acknowledged soon after peace was signed, it took until 1982 for the German Government to recognise the Porrajmos or Roma annihilation. Even now, the word is probably unfamiliar to many noble Lords. It was not until 2012, after 20 years of campaigning by Roma groups, that a memorial to the Sinti and Roma people murdered under the Nazi regime was opened in Berlin. A campaign to place a memorial on the site of the Lety Roma concentration camp in the Czech Republic, where there is now an industrial pig farm, is so far unheeded.

However, as my noble friend said, it is not enough to commemorate. One Roma man I talked to said, “There is a Kristallnacht every weekend in the Czech Republic. Today it is nothing extraordinary to see patrols of extremists in T-shirts with slogans such as ‘Burn the Gypsies’”. Segregated education of Roma children en masse exists. Forced sterilisation exists. Inhuman and degrading treatment by police exists. All these are included in recent evidence from judgments in the European Court of Human Rights.

Another aim of the IHRA’s Roma genocide committee is to include Roma history and the contemporary situation of Roma in the school curriculum. Can the Minister tell us how far the Institute of Education and other bodies funded by Her Majesty’s Government to improve holocaust education have got with that?

The European Commission is well aware of the situation. Following the wretched deportation of hundreds of Roma people from France in 2010, it proposed in 2011 a Roma integration strategy which all member states of the EU signed up to. Yet the UK did not devise a specific strategy, saying in 2012 that they had got as far as setting up a national Roma contact point and a ministerial working group for the Gypsy and Traveller community with a list of commitments, although this had been set up for other purposes in 2010. Eventually, they were persuaded to include issues specific to the Roma people from the European mainland. We nevertheless hear insults and bigotry stereotyping all those of Romani and Traveller descent throughout the tabloid press and in casual conversation in a way that would not be tolerated for any other ethnic group. It is not unknown for parliamentarians and even Ministers to talk, for instance, about the proximity of Travellers having a “negative impact on business”. However, the negative impact is in the other direction: Travellers and those of Romani descent have by far the worst outcomes in mortality, general health and education of any ethnic group in the UK—although again, this is not often remarked on.

At a time when we still mourn the greatest fighter against race prejudice, Nelson Mandela, those of us who joined in the struggle against apartheid might well have cause to be ashamed of our continent. Europe, the nursery of so many ideas of freedom and justice, could do better. The UK, which is capable of great tolerance and humanity, could do better—save for the shining example of the Welsh Government, who have a comprehensive strategy. Our political leadership could do better. The leadership of the faith communities could do better in this country, although they have joined in an open letter to the Romanian Government. Nelson Mandela spoke of an,

“inalienable right to human dignity”—

what we also call human rights. We still need to make that a reality for our Gypsy, Traveller and Roma citizens. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.