Roma, Gypsies, at Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria WWII

Mauthausen Concentration Camp, near Linz, Austria, originally was populated with criminals deemed detrimental to the commonweal, in 1938.  That category then broadened to include ethnic minorities, and "undesirables;"  German Sinti were decimated.

We understand there is a Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma in Heidelburg, Germany, see this general overview we just found (we have not been there) at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentation_and_Cultural_Centre_of_German_Sinti_and_Roma/  We were at the Nazi Documentation Center in Nuremberg, however, and if this is of the same calibre and thoroughness, it is worth at least a full day's visit.
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Mauthausen was built by prisoners from Dachau, Germany, see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/mauthausen.html. A year later, not only criminals but racial, religious, national and political groups seen as undesirable groups were designated as detriments, and imprisoned at Mauthausen. By 1939 there were already 300 gypsies from the Burgenland area there. See "Gypsies in the Holocaust" at ://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/gypsies.html

Memorial, Mother Germany, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria

The Mauthausen concept included this main camp, and 49 "permanent sub-camps". In looking at death statistics, other concentration camp complexes or hubs like this only counted the deaths at the main camp. Say 35,000 for the main camp, and 2,000,000 including the larger complex. Maybe "just" 100,000+.  Or 200,000. The records were intact upon liberation, but somehow nobody was made to put the figures together, so nobody did. See Death Statistics for Mauthausen at ://www.scrapbookpages.com/Mauthausen/KZMauthausen/History/deathstatistics.html/.  See the breakdowns by group.
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Exhibit, Zigeuner (Gypsies) at Mauthausen KC, Mauthausen, Austria. Photographs, text.

Data on the Roma genocide:  See the Holocaust Encyclopedia at ://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005219/  There are also photographs there.
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Wall Plaque Memorial, Roma and Sinti, (Gypsy groups), Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria


Guard tower, barbed wire, wall, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria

Death by execution (shooting), disease (especially typhus), gas, hanging, malnutrition, exhaustion, at a rate of some 300 deaths per day upon liberation. This was a punishment-labor and death camp where trying to get down the long staircase into the quarry and breaking rocks killed many itself.  Many more, the exhibits state, were simply pushed off the cliff above into the quarry - those killed in that way were called "the parachutists."

Many deaths were not recorded toward the end of the war because the Austrian police had taken over and most of the staff escaped. See ://www.scrapbookpages.com/Mauthausen/KZMauthausen/History/deathstatistics.html/  Three thousand more died after the Americans took over, including the handover to the Russians soon after liberation, from similar causes to before - exhaustion, disease, but now there is note of inmates killing each other (no further information on that), and the starving dying of sudden abundance of over-rich food.

A crematory oven, two layers. Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria

The Gypsies.  Records are sparse, compared to the fates of other populations. How many were executed at gullies, and pushed in, and never arriving at the camp. As a refresher course in the variety among this population, read the Summary for Gypsies, not only listing how they were killed in the camps, but their identifications.  See the "Sinti" and "Roma" specified in particular at Mauthausen.  See ://summary.jeetu.co.in/s/Gypsies/.

The listing of Gypsy groups is similar to earlier posts here from other sources, but this is more extensive:

• "Romanichal , the Gitanoes , the Sinti , the Rudari , the Manush , the Boyash , the Ungaritza , the Luri , the Bashald , the Romungro , and the Xoraxai ."  

Add the four Rom tribe-nations:

• the "Kalderash , the Machavaya , the Lovari , and the Churari ." 

 Other names for the Romani:

• "Gypsies, Tsigani, Tzigane, Cigano, Zigeuner, and more. 

•  Roma linguistically are in three basic groups:  Domari in the Middle East, and East Europe; Lomarven of Centrare divided into three populations:  "the Domari of the Middle East and Eastern Europe, the Lomarvren of Central Europe, and the Romani of Western Europe.

Tens of thousands. How many. Mother Germany. Mother Austria. Beyond comprehension. Are we also so seeded.
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Bucolic view of the killing quarry down there, here at the cliff-top, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen, Austria

Current issues: Migrations, Economic Pressures, Global Movements

Conditions. Further update, on the poor vs. progress. This is 3/3/08: Read "On the Margins: Roma and Public Services in Romania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia, With a Supplement on Housing in the Czech Republic," by Ina Zoon, Open Society Institute press 2001. Covers denials of health care, lack of adequate housing, and recommendations.

Migrations. Here is a teaching, resource site with an excellent historical overview of the migration of Roma-Gypsies, from the East to the British Isles, and to US and other continents. //www.travellersinleeds.co.uk/_travellers/HistoryEngland.html. There is a timeline, maps, pictures, a great start for understanding the magnitude of the accomplishment of Gypsies - surviving for millennia, migrating, or going on routes within areas, as they kept on the road.

Like any people, move where it may be better. Look at the conditions documented in the Ina Zoon sourcebook, above.

Like anyone's immigrant grandparents and great-grandparents of whatever background, who came here, or to Canada. How stop the human desire for a life with more health, economic security, a place where families can survive over subsistence / persecution level. A water level concept. Always has been. Immigration happens. And it enriches, if others can let it. Look at the children's pictures at the Travellers In Leeds site.

See this article regarding the Romanian Roma population, set to move wherever it is safer, better. See //www.reuters.com/article/sphereNews/idUSL0932609020070909?sp=true&view=sphere.
The article asks, is the European Union any more prepared, or amenable, to sharing abundance or even sufficiency, with those who have neither, and what is the consequence of not so doing.

Us, US, heed. Immigration is a global issue, self-determination drives are a global issue. A finger in a dike cannot last. Right, right?

Vlachs. Vlax. Records vie. Gypsies, or not

Vying about origins. See ://www.m-w.com/dictionary/vie. "Bury Me Standing" says that the Vlachs were Latin-speaking; and that they saw the value in Gypsies (this section suggests that the Vlachs were not themselves Gypsies - need to find out more) at p. 177. Then again, there is an earlier record of two "Egyptians" including a Vlach who ordered merchandise in the Balkans (Dubrovnik, Croatia?).

This site recognizes the Vlach origins of Gypsies in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, see http://romani.uni-graz.at/rombase/cgi-bin/art.cgi?src=data/ethn/groupscz/cz-vlax.en.xml.
This one examines their history and culture, as they are in Hungary - Hungarian Gypsies. See ://www.everyculture.com/Europe/Vlach-Gypsies-of-Hungary.html

This site does not recognize Vlachs as Gypsy at all. See "Bury Me Standing, The Gypsies and their Journey," Isabel Fonseca, NY Vintage 1996. It sees them, from records, as indigenous to the area from the times of the Roman Legions, and speaking a vernacular Latin. Fonseca researched records from books not translated before, and not circulated - even now. You have to go to the libraries, ask, wait, hope.

Tracing origins by language. Specific words used in different parts of Europe are followed at this site, pointing out the branches of Romani.

//www.marston.co.uk/RSPP/LUPRSV012P02A00075.pdf, are listed as

1. Northern -
Germany and France - "Sinti"
Scandinavian, Spain, Poland, Northern Russia, Baltic States [association with late middle ages migration, into central, northern, southern, western Europe]

2. Central - Hungary, Burgenland in Austria, Slovak Republic, Czech Republic

3. Balkan

4. Vlax

For the Vlachs, or Vlax, or Vlachi, see an initial overview and photos at Romania Road Ways, Vlachs. See also the Czech Republic and Slovakian Vlachs at http://romani.uni-graz.at/rombase/cgi-bin/art.cgi?src=data/ethn/groupscz/cz-vlax.en.xml.

They are also in Greece, and that is where we photographed one - a shepherd, with his sheep, see Greece Road Ways, Ioannina, Metsovo, Vlachs. And Texas, around the area of Vlassko, see ://www.angelfire.com/tx5/texasczech/Valachs/Who%20are%20the%20Valachs.htm; and ://brunodam.blog.kataweb.it/2006/10/26/xviii-ae-forum-on-aromaniansvlachs/

Defenses of any Underclass: None, From the System. Poverty, Their Fault?

No Consideration for Extenuating Circumstances.
Poverty as Defense to Crime - Little Recognized

Fault for Retrievals, Takings, Lie with the Individual, Not the System.
Parallels to American black history?

Roma, in Romania, retrieving in a dump

Roma at a dump in Romania. Issues of poverty for many. Take what is needed, retrieve what is owed. There is a line in 'Zoli', something like,

"From what is broken, I will make what is required."

Hunger, ingenuity, survivors; and then the other end of the scale - wealth, fine cars and clothes, Roma upper groups, enjoying the casino at Sibiu, Romania, getting out of the fine, big cars, in charge.

In many cultures, the reason for the theft, an extenuating circumstance, see ://www.answers.com/topic/extenuating-circumstances-1may mitigate a sentence. Where an economic imbalance has become part of a system, however, the system may refuse or be unable to see its role in the extenuation. It is easier to recognize a single set of circumstances as emergency, after which the person recovered balance. Not so with Gypsies, Roma. Is this true, that the fault is seen as theirs.

Compare incarceration of blacks in the United States with incarceration of Roma in Eastern Europe, other areas. Parallels. See The Black Commentator at ://www.blackcommentator.com/82/82_prisons.html/ The treatment is said to reflect implicit national policy, approval of disparate treatment. The Roma are not seen in many areas as legitimate citizens.

Like any other group, people divide into gradations, social stratification, even degradation in the status for some. Getting what is needed from a dump is not necessarily a degradation however; it is also a means to remaking, earning a living. One culture's view may not be another's. Is our dumpster-diving so different, any less needed.

In connection with poverty comes to mind another issue -we read, and lines in "Zoli" (pp____ coming) comment that Gypsies were expelled, caravans forced out of towns, and a reason is the accusations against them as to theft. It is said that they stole. Or cheated people. And there are examples of that happening in the book, especially at the close of the novel.

A start on figuring this out. Go to Studying War, at the section addressing roles people take or are assigned in their overall cultural setting. Then, look at how their interactions lead to conflict. within a group, and with others. See an analysis of conflict sliding into violence, other into national and international settings (forcing migrations out), at ://www.zef.de/441.0.html

Poverty also has been used as a defense to crime. See "Shifting the Blame:How Victimization Became a Criminal Defense," by Saundra D. Westervelt, Rutgers Univ. Press 1999. The issue is neither new nor simple. No conclusions here, just raising concerns here so far. Is criminality and theft too focused on the lower strata, where the crime do minimal "damage," but may be more personal --compared to the humungous economic thefts going on higher up, but where it is less personal. Less in the face. Is that so?

Fostering theft, the taking back, or the taking to get what is needed, or the taking in order to regain some self-respect, whatever reason. Including sheer greed and disregard. What behaviors do develop, and where may some kind of responsibility lie, when a group

• is set aside as a virtually permanent underclass,
• identifiable by physical characteristics or custom, and
  
• targeted easily by others who refuse them assimilation or even acceptance of difference (if the people did not seek assimilation, as the Gypsies did not seek assimilation) and
  
• are subject to continuing prejudice because the group still can be spotted by physical or cultural difference
  

Among the groupings* that may be useful to look at in the targeting process, are the relationship between:

a) a society's extractors - each seeking to get what he or chs can for self FN1 - those who victimize others, in the name of the right to self-seek.

b) a society's lifestylers, groups that seek to preserve their financial and social rank in the society - who may well fear others, fear loss, and seek to entrench; and

c) a society's fodder, groups that are defined out of consideration - lose out to others

What does Zoli say and do: Perspective. Look back at Zoli, I am looking for the page____, a Gypsy character notes, as I recall, that a Gypsy may steal a chicken or two out of need; but an outsider would take the whole henhouse and then burn down the place. This is not to romanticize any group. It is to say that fodder defends itself; and also that societies create a need for fodder - a foundation that does not move. Someone is always there. The poor always with us, and shrug, as though we should care.

Elsewhere forms: Allegations of "welfare fraud" The tax games, the exorbitant profits, economic abuse, all the rest - Gypsies - who have developed their own sense of purity against outsiders, in a sense justifying takings, in the same league as takings by higher economic groups and their dodginess. Extractors are in every group, as are all the other groupings. Is that so?

And should it make a difference. Ongoing thoughts. See also "Justifying Justice: Therapeutic Law and the Victimization Defense Strategy," J.L.Nolan and S.D.Westervelt, Sociological Forum Vol. 15, No. 4, Dec. 2000, pp.617-646, at
www.ingentaconnect.com/klu/sofo/2000/00000015/00000004/00229364.

Issue may be more the cycle of abuse. The abused then abuse others. That is recognized in other areas. Look up domestic violence. Apply it here. Also, go to RomNews Network Community@RomNews.com/de. URL at http://www.romnews.com/community/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=41.

Buy a T-shirt there, a dignified black one with white letters, "Gypsy Power."
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FN 1 A society's extractors -- those in any economic or social bracket who get what they can whenever they can. Do they see their job as to look out for themselves, regardless, and they feel unfairly dealt with otherwise, as they look around. If it's there for the taking, including crop subsidies that are not financially needed, take it. Maybe.