Memorial of the Porajmos, 2 August 2017
Mal, Mire Phrale My friends, my brothers. I stand here today with regret and in awe. I stand here in awe, thinking of the endless chain of persecutions endured by the Roma people, by your people, throughout history.
It did not start with the Porajmos. “Gypsy huntings” in Early Modern Italy. Branding of Roma in the Austrian Empire. Slavery in Romania, up until the early 20th Century. In the 60s and 70s, Romnia, Roma women and mothers, had been forcedly sterilised all over Europe. Everywhere: in communist Czechoslovakia, in socialist Sweden, in capitalistic Switzerland.
Nowadays in Italy, Romani children are segregated at school, and Romani families are forced to live in ghettoes. Roma families are evicted, even now, right now, on this very day, throughout Europe and the UK. Anti-Ziganis is an unending gallery of horrors. And for this, I stand in awe.
Mar Mal, Mire Phrale, My friends, my brothers. I stand today in awe and with regret. Spiritual giants such as Simon Wiesenthal, Holocaust survivors and witnesses, have reminded the world that Jews and Roma had been victims of the same genocide. But we Jews did not manage to make our voice heard. The words “Never again!” which should have been written in the heart of every human being, are just that, just words. The persecution of your people continues. It never stops. And for this, I, a Jew, stand with regret.
Mar Mal, Mire Phrale, My friends, my brothers. I am a Rabbi. I am a religious person. Every time I speak in public, I am used to concluding with words of hope. But it is difficult to find hope. How can we hope to defeat anti-Ziganism, when the very victims of the Porajmos are denied representation? How can we say we have to learn from history?
We don’t have the faintest idea of the number of Roma and Sinti murdered in the Porajmos! Children slaughtered in horrendous experiments, women forcibly sterilised, fathers and grandfathers humiliated in front of their families… How can we commemorate them, when the same persecution continues? To these questions, I have no answer.
I stay with regret and I stay in awe. And I can only pray.
To honour the martyrs I want to conclude with a traditional Jewish prayer, usually recited for the victims of the Holocaust, which I have slightly adapted for this day.
אֵל מָלֵא רַחֲמִים שׁוֹכֵן בַּמְּרוֹמִים, הַמְצֵא מְנוּחָה נְכוֹנָה תַחַת כַּנְפֵי הַשְּׁכִינָה, בְּמַעֲלוֹת קְדוֹשִׁים וטְהוֹרִים כְּזוֹהַר הָרָקִיע מַזְהִירִים אֶת כָּל הַנְּשָׁמוֹת שֶׁל מֵאוֹת אֳלָפֵי הַרוֹמַאִם וְסִנטִם, חַלְלֵי הַשְּׁמָדָה בְּאֵירוֹפָּה, שֶׁנֶּהֶרְגוּ, שֶׁנִּשְׁחֲטוּ, שֶׁנִּשְׂרְפוּ וְעַנוּ בְּנִסוּים אַכְזָרִים בִּידֵי הָלִגִיוֹן הֶשָׁחוֹר וְעוֹזְרַיו.
לָכֵן בַּעַל הָרַחֲמִים יַסְתִּירֵם בְּסֵתֶר כְּנָפָיו לְעוֹלָמִים, וְיִצְרוֹר בִּצְרוֹר הַחַיִּים אֶתנִשְׁמוֹתֵיהֶם, ה’ הוּא נַחֲלָתָם, וְיַעֶמְדוּ לְגוֹרָלָם לְקֵץ הַיָּמִין, וְנֹאמַר אָמֵן.
O God, full of compassion and forgiveness, who dwells in the heights, provide a rest under the wings of the Divine Presence, together with the holy and the pure, who shine like the stars in the heaven, to all the souls of hundreds of thousands of Roma and Sinti, victims of the genocide, who were murdered, slaughtered, burnt, exterminated, tortured in cruel experiments by the Black Legion and their helpers. The God of Mercy will protect them forever and will bind their souls in the bond of Eternal life. The Everlasting is their heritage and they shall rest peacefully to the end of days, and let us say: Amen.
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