26/01/2023
FSG
27 January is the day of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, one of the main symbols of the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazi regime during the Second World War, in which millions of people were murdered (Jews Roma, political prisoners, LGBTI, Jehovah's Witnesses, people with disabilities...).
Once again this year, the Fundación Secretariado Gitano (FSG) joins in the remembrance and commemoration in memory of all the victims of this barbarity. As an organization that fights against discrimination, we consider it important not only to remember the persecution of Roma people as part of history, but also to increasingly involve Roma people in the narrative of their own history of persecution, including during World War II.
United Nations web. Outreach Programme on the Holocaust. 2023 Home and Belonging
Exploring how victims adjusted their ideas of “home” and “belonging” as they faced the violent, antisemitic onslaught during the Holocaust, and what “home” and “belonging” meant to survivors in the immediate post-war years will frame the outreach programme. In 1933, the Nazi Party took control of the government of Germany and put its ideology into practice, identifying who could claim Germany as home and who belonged. The process of definition and exclusion went beyond legislation and propaganda campaigns of disinformation and hate speech, to state-sanctioned acts of terror that destroyed people’s places of worship, livelihood and homes. The definition of who belonged and who did not, soon extended to all who fell within the expanding borders of the Nazi Reich and was reproduced by collaborator governments.
The Nazis and their racist collaborators rendered many millions homeless and stateless before and during the Second World War. We consider how those who sought refuge from 1933 negotiated the meaning of “home” and “belonging”. We consider those who survived by hiding and the impact of this experience on their sense of “home”. We will examine the ways in which survivors as displaced persons in displaced persons’ camps, and the children born in these camps, navigated the post-War world - a world in which the meaning of “home” and “belonging” had been challenged radically by the perpetrators of the Holocaust.
Holocaust remembrance and education that includes opportunities to develop a deeper appreciation of the victims and survivors and their agency, can inform our response to the plight of contemporary victims. Placing the victims and survivors in the centre of historical research, learning and remembrance illuminates the humanity of victims of atrocities today, and the impact of antisemitism fuelled by disinformation and the distortion of history. Focusing on the humanity of the victims prompts us to remember our humanity, and our responsibility to combat hate speech, combat antisemitism and prejudice - to do all we can to prevent genocide.
