June 9, 2013

Recalling Gypsies in the Mineshaft

By Bruce Walker
If we feel now that we face great evil and that hope has gone, we ought to look back seventy-five years.  What happened in 1938?  In November, the Jews of Germany were subjected to the horrors of Kristallnacht.  Synagogues burned.  Jews were murdered in the street.  The shadow of the Shoah to come loomed large across the lands of Europe.  Seventy-five years ago this week, five months before that organized persecution of German Jews, another largely forgotten, seldom noted part of Nazi malice began.  June 12, 1938 to June 18, 1938 was "Gypsy Clean Up Week" in Germany.  Thousands of Gypsies were hunted, beaten, and arrested for no reason other than being Gypsies.  This Nazi hatred blossomed in full hellishness into what Gypsies have called simply "The Devouring."  The number of Roma and Sinti Gypsies exterminated by the Nazis is not certain.  Perhaps only one quarter of a million souls died -- that is the low figure given by...(Read Full Article)