Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

[RioRodent]

How much (Roughly) does it cost pw to heat a 2/3 bedroom house during the winter months?

Just checked our last four bills... gas usage came out at £8.70 / week over the year, that includes heat, hot water and cooking for a [smallish] 3 bed detached house - just two people.

Nice avatar Rio

 

[RED-DOG]

Today is one of those days when everything seems just a bit surreal. You sort of wake up and think to yourself:

Where is this place?

What am I doing here?

How did I end up inside this body? (and why hasn't it been looked after?).. etc etc.   

I don't  know if this is just me, (If so, then just move on and pretend I didn't say anything) or if it happens to everyone, but just occasionally, I seem to see my life from the outside, as if it's part of a documentary or something.

I won't explain further, because if you know what I mean, you'll know what I mean, if not, well er...

Hey, How do you like those Pittsburgh Steelers....

[sovietsong]

I feel similar at times, normally when something bad has happened. Had a few things go on last year that weren't very nice and I often felt like somebody else was pressing the buttons while I just sat along for the ride.

Might be a way of coping with bad things.

Does it happen a lot or at certain times of the year etc?

[RED-DOG]

I feel similar at times, normally when something bad has happened. Had a few things go on last year that weren't very nice and I often felt like somebody else was pressing the buttons while I just sat along for the ride.

Might be a way of coping with bad things.

Does it happen a lot or at certain times of the year etc?

No and it doesn't seem to be for any particular reason. (it's not a bad feeling btw) it's just as if I'm suddenly looking at familier things and situations for the first time.

[technolog]

No and it doesn't seem to be for any particular reason. (it's not a bad feeling btw) it's just as if I'm suddenly looking at familier things and situations for the first time.

Sort of like 'pas deja vu'?

[RED-DOG]

No and it doesn't seem to be for any particular reason. (it's not a bad feeling btw) it's just as if I'm suddenly looking at familier things and situations for the first time.

Sort of like 'pas deja vu'?

[RED-DOG]

The girls are going to see the film "Avatar" tonight.

"Dad, shall we see it in 3D or 2D?"

 

[rex008]

And you said "3D, obviously, because the odds of seeing it in 3D outside of the cinema are slim for several years, and besides, it's an incredibly immersive tech-fest, even if the plotline is pretty predictable"

Or not?

[thetank]

3 goddam D

Seeing it in 2D would be like going to Paris and not renting a tiny car, wearing a beret and shouting at pedestrians in a bad French accent. It's still fun but wtf was the point in leaving the house.

[Colchester Kev]

If you want to see me really scared, come to Derby Cathedral on Wed the 27th. It's national holocaust memorial day and I've been asked to speak at the service.

 

How did it go Tom ?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8482760.stm

A big gathering at the guildhall today.

[RED-DOG]

If you want to see me really scared, come to Derby Cathedral on Wed the 27th. It's national holocaust memorial day and I've been asked to speak at the service.

 

How did it go Tom ?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8482760.stm

A big gathering at the guildhall today.

I was just sitting here, wanting to write about it, but not knowing how to. It's something I will never forget.

The cathedral was very impressive, and a bit overwhelming, I was full of nerves waiting for my turn to speak, but it wasn't too bad once I got started.

When the service finished, loads of people, including the Mayor and the Dean of Derby came and thanked me, so it must have been OK. The majority of the people said that they didn't know about most of the things that happened to the Gypsies, so bringing it out into the open was very rewarding for me.

Most of all, I was privileged to meet this lady.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Hart-Moxon

She told me that she had seen the Gypsies at Auschwitz being herded into the gas chambers, and she had also seen Gypsy children that Dr Mengele was experimenting on.

Her story is one of the most astounding you could ever imagine. It is at once awe inspiring, and terrible beyond belief. (I will try to tell you a little of what she told us later)  

The years have not diminished her, either mentally or physically. She is as sharp as a tack, and has seemingly boundless energy.

She warned us that we must be vigilant. It could all so easily happen again.

She has been telling her story for 65 years. She is 84 years old.

[RED-DOG]

For those who have an interest, This is the piece that I did. Most of the stuff is from the web, and I added few bits of my own where I thought it appropriate.



PORRAJMOS - THE GYPSY HOLOCAUST


The Romany name for Gypsy Holocaust is Porrajmos. It means the Great Devouring
Draconian measures against Gypsies had started in Germany long before the twentieth century.  There were some 148 to deal with Gypsies between 1416 and 1774.

Gypsy hunts were common sport, and huntsmen would return displaying their trophies of severed heads. In 1835 a Rheinish aristocrat listed amongst his trophies “A Gypsy woman and her suckling babe”.

Events preceding the Holocaust

Long before the war there were measures in place to identify Gypsies and to curtail their freedom.
In the 1890’S, in Swabia: a conference called “The Gypsy Filth” was held, and in 1899,  “Central Office for Fighting the Gypsy Nuisance” was created.
In 1905: Alfred Dillman identified more than 3,500 Gypsies from all over Europe in his book “The Gypsy Book” to help police.

In 1906, in Prussia: there was a directive to combat “the Gypsy Nuisance” including bi-lateral agreements with Austria, Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Russia and Switzerland.

In 1909: the Swiss Department of Justice began a Register of Gypsies. And Hungary: suggested that Gypsies should be branded for identification.

1912 in France: all Gypsies over 6 years old were made to carry identity cards. 8,000 Gypsies were processed.
Between 1919-1921 Germany: Gypsy camps and nomadism were outlawed. Gypsies were banned from holiday resorts and spas, and were ordered to return trading licences.

In 1922 in Germany: All Gypsies over 14 had to carry identity cards with photographs and fingerprints. All foreign Gypsies were banned. They were refused trade licences and social gatherings were forbidden.

In 1927 Prussia began armed raids on Gypsy communities to enforce registration.
1933: the Nazi party were voted into power, and inherited anti-Gypsy laws that had been in force since the middle Ages.

The Racial Hygiene and Criminal Biology Research Unit

In June 1935, intermarriage between Aryan and non-Aryan people was forbidden. The main Nazi institution to deal with Gypsies, The Racial Hygiene and Criminal Biology Research Unit, was first established. Robert Ritter was in charge of this unit, the express purpose of which was to determine whether Gypsies and Blacks were human or sub-human.

Flying working groups started tracking down Gypsies in institutions, prisons, caravans and on camp sites. Once found, they were tested in Ritter’s centre. The law meant that if two of a person’s eight grandparents were even part-Gypsy, that person had too much Gypsy ancestry.

It was planned to keep a number of families in a compound, for future anthropologists to be able to study.

 In a progress report in 1940 Ritter stated:

“… we have been able to establish that more than 90% of so-called native Gypsies are of mixed blood…Further results of our investigations have allowed us to characterise the Gypsies as being a people of entirely primitive ethnological origins, whose mental backwardness makes them incapable of real social adaptation….The Gypsy question can only be solved when the main body of the social and good-for-nothing Gypsy individuals, (Those of mixed blood) is collected together in large camps, and kept working there, and when the further breeding of this population of mixed blood is stopped once and for all”.

Deportation to the concentration camps.

From 1933, many Gypsies were sent to concentration camps where they were forced to do penal labour and where some underwent sterilisation.

 Here, a Gypsy man speaks of deportation.

“We were sitting having our coffee when they came. “Get ready you’re coming with us.” We were allowed a small bundle of our belongings, the rest we had to leave behind.
We were taken to huge halls on the Rhine. There we had to put out our clothes in baskets. The worst that can happen to a Gypsy man is to be seen naked in front of women and children. We cowered together in a heap, so did the women. They cried, and so did the men.
Real fear started in the trains and we were herded like animals. We travelled for three to four days, suddenly the train stopped and all we saw were SS soldiers. We had to build our own camp and when finished we moved on, others came and so it continued for the next five years.

The Concentration Camps

A Gypsy woman speaks of her experiences in the concentration camps.

“In Birkenau, a big ditch was dug out, and sprinkled with petrol. It was burning night and day.
They used to line up Gypsies on the edge. They pushed them…the screams and the yells were terrible! They burned everyone in there, children, the old…everyone.
I ran outside with another Gypsy woman. It was after lock up, but I didn’t care any more. I thought a least if they shot me, I would die at once. We stood near the burning ditch and saw how they pushed those people in. It was horrible….No, I just can’t describe what it was like to you. It was the end of the world –

It was a holocaust.

In 1940, 250 Gypsy children in the concentration camp at Buchenwald were used as guinea pigs for testing the Zyclon B cyanide gas crystals, a lethal insecticide which, from 1941 onwards was used for mass murders at Auschwitz/Birkenau.

“At Buchenwald then, for the first time, this gas was used for mass murder, and it was for the murder of innocent Gypsy children.”

“Towards the end of the war. They knew the Russians were near. Then Mengele started killing the children. They ordered a lock-up night and no-one was allowed to go outside… He took each child by the legs and hit them against a pillar.”

When the Russian army reached Auschwitz-Birkenau, some Gypsies had been transferred earlier to other camps but no Gypsies were found alive, there were no survivors.

After the War

Gypsy victims were never compensated for the atrocities committed against them. Gypsies in Germany and what had been the occupied lands were afraid to return to their homes.

The attempted genocide of the entire Gypsy people was forgotten. No-one from the Gypsy community was called to give evidence at the Nuremburg trials,  The perpetrators (Himmler, Justin, Mengele). were never brought to trial,

It was not until 1994 that the first international conference on the Gypsy Holocaust took place in Vienna.

Let me quote you with some facts and figures.

“In 1938 Germany had a Gypsy population of 16,275. Of these, 85 per cent, were thrown into concentration camps, no more then 12 per cent survived.”
(The Wiener Library Bulletin 1950)

“The Nazis killed between a quarter and a third of all Gypsies living in Europe, and as many as 70 per cent in those areas where Nazi control had been established longest.”
(Strom and Parsons 1978)

“… The Gypsies had been murdered (in a proportion) similar to the Jews; about 80% of them in the area of the countries which were occupied by the Nazis.”
(Simon Wiesenthal 1984)

The biggest numerical losses were in Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland, the USSR and Hungary. Estimates of the number of Gypsy victims who died in Europe during the war vary, but it was at least half a million, and probably a lot more.

I didn’t come here today to bring you a horror story; I came to bring you a story of hope. a story of optimism, and a story of triumph.

It’s a story of hope, because even during the darkest chapters of man's existence, be they those past, or those yet to be written. When everything is ripped away from you, remember this.  They can’t take your hope, until you let it go.

It’s a story of optimism. No matter how much evil is done, those responsible are always in the minority. It may be a strong, aggressive minority, but it is a minority never the less.

I have suffered hatred and discrimination all my life, but those responsible have always been from the ignorant minority. I truly believe that the vast majority of people are good and gentle and kind and caring.  I believe that slowly, ever so slowly, the gentle majority are winning.



It’s a story of triumph because the Gypsy people, persecuted. for generations. are still here.

I thank you.

[bobAlike]

Moving piece, I'm gob smacked Tom. You've really opened my eyes to something I knew very little if anything about.
You hear all the time what happened to the Jews but never the Gypsies.

I actually feel quite ashamed that this is something that has passed me by.

[RED-DOG]

You've really opened my eyes to something I knew very little if anything about.

Thank you. that's very gratifying.

[david3103]

Stunned silence

I knew, I mean, in a general sense I knew ...



thank you