Vijesti ROMI.HR

"Oni koji ništa nisu naučili iz povijesti, osuđeni su da je ponavljaju."

Edmund Burke

Noć 9. studenog 1938. godine obilježena je ogromnim izlivom nasilja širom Njemačke, Austrije i sudetske regije u Čehoslovačkoj. Žrtve napada su bili članovi židovske zajednice, čije su kuće, tvrtke, sinagoge i druge zgrade postali meta i bile uništene. Židovi su pretrpjeli fizičke napade i najmanje 91 osoba je ubijena. Ovaj Pogrom su poticali dužnosnici nacističke stranke, a proveli su ga SA (Jurišni odredi) i članovi Hitlerjugenda (Hitlerova mladež). Ovaj dan je postao poznat pod nazivom “Kristalna noć“. Na engleski jezik je preveden kao „Noć razbijenog stakla“ zbog brojnih prozorskih stakala porazbijenih u židovskim dućanima, kućama i sinagogama.

Nacistička vlada, koristeći se u punoj mjeri potencijalom svog propagandnog stroja, rekla je njemačkoj javnosti da je napad rezultat “iznenadne reakcije društva“ na atentat
na Ernsta vom Ratha, njemačkog diplomata u Parizu. Počinitelj atentata je bio Herschel Grynszpan, 17-godišnji Židov iz Poljske, koji je napao vom Ratha 7. studenog. Nekoliko dana prije, vlasti su protjerale tisuće poljskih Židova iz Trećeg rajha, uključujući Grynszpanove roditelje.

9. studeni, odnosno dan kada je vom Rath umro, bio je vrlo simboličan datum. Istog dana 1923. godine je pokušan takozvani Munchenski puč. To je bio neuspjeli pokušaj članova NSDAP-a srušiti njemačku vladu, što je konačno rezultiralo zatvaranjem dijela pučista između ostalih Adolfa Hitlera i Rudolfa Hessa. Ova komemoracija je pružila nacističkim visokim dužnosnicima jedinstvenu priliku da šire poruke mržnje optužujući “svjetsko židovstvo“ za vom Rathovu smrt i nevolje Njemačke.

Nedugo nakon ponoći, 9. studenog 1938. godine, šef Gestapa Reinhard Heydrich je počeo slati telegrame policiji i čelnicima SA odreda širom Njemačke s konkretnim uputama o tome na koji način treba napadati Židove, savjetujući im da zatvore što veći broj Židova. Židovske zajednice u Berlinu i Beču, s najvećom koncentracijom Židova, su patile najviše. Ukupno je uhićeno preko 28 000 Židova.

S obzirom na opseg materijalne štete njemačka vlada je strahovala da će osiguravajuća društva morati osigurati isplatu troškova popravka. Kako bi se to izbjeglo, njemačka vlada je prebacila izravnu odgovornost na Židove i natjerala je židovsku zajednicu u Njemačkoj da plati kaznu od milijardu tadašnjih Reischmaraka oduzimajući im istovremeno osiguranje. Taj iznos je odgovarao vrijednosti od 400 milijuna američkih dolara, odnosno više od 7 milijardi u naše vrijeme.

Narednih tjedana je usvojen niz protužidovskih zakona u više sfera života koji su također poznati kao Nirnberški zakoni. Ovim zakonima su bila značajno ugrožena osnovna prava Židova. Vlada je vlasnicima oduzimala tvrtke, Židovima su oduzeta prava na zapošljavanje i školovanje i njihova sloboda je postala iznimno ograničena.

“Kristalnu noć“ je označila početak nove faze politike antisemitizma u Njemačkoj. Iako je Hitler od početka otvoreno koristio antisemitsku retoriku, ostao je ambivalentan u odnosu na pretvaranje ovih stavova u radikalne akcije. Događaji tokom “Kristalne noći“ su potvrdili ono što je Hitler već pretpostavljao - njemačka javnost je prihvatila njegov nasilni pristup prema židovskom pitanju i bilo je očito da će vjerojatno ostati ravnodušna na oštrije mjere koje budu usvojene protiv Židova u budućnosti. Ova legitimacija fašističke ideologije je otvorila vrata politici otvorenog nasilja protiv Židova, koju je Hitler sada mogao provoditi bez opasnosti svom političkom autoritet.

Ono što je uslijedilo je jedna od najmračnijih epizoda u ljudskoj povijesti. Surovost nacističkog genocida je oduzela živote oko 6 milijuna Židova. Dodatnih 5 milijuna pripadnika drugih etničkih, kulturnih, političkih i manjinskih vjerskih skupina je ubijeno između 1941. i 1945. godine, uključujući Rome nad kojima je izvršen genocid.

Genocidu nad Romima, također poznatom kao Porajmos, je povijesno posvećeno manje pažnje nego što zaslužuje. Pokušaj nacista da istrijebe cijelu romsku zajednicu u Europi je bio sustavan i imao je strašne razmjere. Tek mnogo godina nakon rata su  temeljita istraživanja počela polako pokazivati kroz što su Romi prošli. Tek 1982. godine je Njemačka službeno priznala zločine nad Romima kao genocid prema međunarodnim pravnim standardima, otvarajući time put ka reparacijama koje se u praksi nikad nisu
u potpunosti ostvarile. Unatoč tome što se posljednjih desetljeća interes prema ovoj temi povećao, svijest javnosti o genocidu nad Romima od strane nacista je i dalje niska.
U Hrvatskoj je istrebljenje Roma od strane ustaša, fašističke i šovinističke vlade i satelita nacističke Njemačke, bilo toliko zastrašujeće da je tek 2011. godine romska zajednica
u Hrvatskoj dosegla predratnu razinu.

Tokom posljednjih 10 godina uspon ekstremno desničarskih stranaka širom Europe je postao neugodna stvarnost. Institucionalizacija otvoreno neofašističkih stranaka ne bi smjela biti olako prihvaćena. Rasizam, govor mržnje i islamofobija su vrlo prisutni u našim društvima, često pod krinkom manje problematičnih, ali podjednako opasnih pojmova poput “granične kontrole” i “borbe protiv ilegalnih migracija”. Vrijeme pojave ovog trenda ide na ruku ksenofobnim strankama koje su iskoristile ekonomsku nesigurnost koja je uslijedila nakon krize, trazeći krivce za sve probleme naroda. Takvi stavovi potkopavaju demokratska načela na kojima su izgrađena moderna društva, potičući diskriminaciju, nasilje i isključivanje te doprinose društveno polariziranom svijetu u kojem netolerancija, nedostatak komunikacije i mržnja postaju norma.

Izgradnja bolje budućnosti zahtijeva zajedničku viziju u kojoj empatija, sporazumijevanje i solidarnost postaju temeljne vrijednosti. Ovaj dan bi nas trebao podsjetiti da je cijena neostvarivanja takve vizije nepodnošljivo visoka.

The International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism attempts to raise awareness about the dangers of intolerance, hatred and persecution. The chosen date keeps alive the memory of ‘Kristallnacht’, a dark moment in the annals of modern history. Today, with neo-fascism rising in Western societies and hate speech expanding rapidly both in the social and political spheres, it might be useful to look back, even if briefly, into the origins of this day.

‘’Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it’’

Edmund Burke

On the night of the 9th of November 1938, a huge violent outburst took place throughout Germany, Austria and the Sudety (Sudetenland) region of Czechoslovakia. The victims of the attacks were members of the Jewish community, whose houses, businesses, synagogues and community buildings were targeted and destroyed. Jewish people suffered physical assaults widely and at least 91 died. The Pogrom was instigated by Nazi party officials, SA (Sturmabteilung) and Hitler Youth’s members. It became known as ‘Kristallnacht’, freely translated into English as ‘The Night of the Broken Glass’, in a direct reference to the many window panes shattered in Jewish shops, houses and synagogues.

The Nazi government, making full use of their propaganda machine, told the German public that the attack was the result of a sudden public reaction to the assassination of Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat to Paris. The perpetrator was Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year old Jew from Poland, who attacked vom Rath on the 7th November. Some days before, the authorities had expelled thousands of Jews from Poland out of territory of Third Reich, including Grynszpan’s parents.

The 9th of November – the day vom Rath died – was a very symbolic date. On the same day in 1923, the Munich Putsch had taken place. This was a failed attempt by members of the NSDAP to overthrow the government, which led to the incarceration of Adolf Hitler and Rudolf Hess, among others. This commemoration provided Nazi high officials with a unique opportunity for the Nazi party to send a widespread message of hatred, blaming ‘World’s Judaism’ for vom Rath’s death and the country’s woes.  

Shortly after midnight, the Head of the Gestapo Reinhard Heydrich began to send telegrams to police and SA leaders throughout Germany with specific instructions on how to perform the attacks, also indicating them to incarcerate as many Jews as possible. The Jewish communities in Berlin and Viena – where the largest concentration of Jews lived - suffered with most intensity. In total, over 28,000 Jews were arrested.

Given the extent of material destruction, the German government feared that insurance companies would have to deal with the cost of repairs. In order to avoid this, it made the Jews directly responsible and forced the Jewish community in Germany to pay a fine of 1 billion Reischmark. confiscating their insurance claims in the process. That amount was equal to 400 million US$ at the time, the equivalent to 7 billion US $ today.

In the following weeks, anti-Jewish legislation – known as the Nuremberg Laws - was passed in multiple spheres of life, severely undermining Jews’ basic rights. Jewish companies were seized by the government, Jews were forced out of employment and education and their freedom became strictly restricted.

The Night of The Broken Glass marked a new phase of Nazis’ full commitment to anti-Semitic policies in Germany. While Hitler had openly expressed anti-Semitic rhetoric, he had remained ambivalent in the face of translating these views into radical action. The events during Kristallnacht confirmed what Hitler already suspected: that the German public validated his violent approach to the Jewish question, and was likely to remain complacent to harsher measures to be adopted against Jews in the future. This legitimisation of fascist ideology opened the door to a policy of open violence, one that Hitler could now pursue without jeopardising his political authority.

What followed was one of the darkest episodes in human history. The brutality of the Nazi genocide sieged the lives of an estimated 6 million Jews. An extra 5 million members of other ethnic, cultural, political and religious minority groups were killed between 1941 and 1945, including the Roma over which a geoncide was committed.

The genocide of the Roma population – known as Porajmos – has historically received less attention than deserved. The attempt by the Nazis to wipe out this entire minority in Europe was systematic and huge in scale, and it was not until much after the war that thorough research began to slowly visibilize what the Roma had gone through. Only in 1982 did Germany officially recognise crimes against Roma as genocide according to international law standards, opening a path towards reparations which has never fully materialised in practice. Despite this increased interest in recent decades, public awareness about Roma genocide in the hands of Nazism has generally remained low. In Croatia, the decimation of Roma in the hands of the Ustasha - a fascist, chauvinist, Nazi-satellite government – was so extreme that it took until 2011 for Roma community in Croatia to reach pre-war levels.

Over the past 10 years, the rise of extreme right-wing parties across Europe has become an uncomfortable reality. The institutionalization of openly neo-fascist parties is not to be taken lightly. Racism, hate speech and islamophobia are very present in our societies, often under the guise of less problematic – but equally dangerous – terms such as ‘border control’ and ‘fighting illegal migration’. The timing of this trend shows how xenophobic parties have capitalised on the economic precariousness that ensued after the crisis, finding easy targets on which to blame the nations’ problems. These attitudes undermine the democratic principles on which modern societies are built, encouraging discrimination, violence and exclusion. They contribute to a socially polarised world where intolerance, lack of communication and hatred become the norm.

Building a better future demands a shared vision where empathy, common understanding and solidarity become basic prerogatives. This day should remind us that the costs of failing to incorporate that vision are unbearably high.