Time to have a closer look: The Catholic Church and the Holocaust of the Sinti and Roma
By Sigrid Countess von Galen
Time to cut through some silence and red tape and to have a closer look, at the facts and to listen, what representatives of the Sinti and Roma in Germany have to say. Romani Rose, Chairman of the Zentralrat Deutscher Sinti und Roma, writes in his article "'...when our Catholic Church does not protect us' - The Catholic Bishops and the Deportation of the Sinti and Roma to Auschwitz-Birkenau" that the Sinti and Roma were deported after the Himmler order from 16th December 1942, and their desperate letter to Cardinal Bertram, the chairman of the Fulda Bishopsconference, who had also long been kept updated by some of his bishops through their letters with their concerns regarding the treatment and deportations of the Roma, and requests for help was left unanswered.
Although there were about 14 000 Catholics amongst the Sinti and Roma in Germany alone registered, the Catholic church as an institutional church did not stand up for them but was in parts even agreeing to the Nuremberg Laws against Jews and Non-Aryans 'as indispensable safeguards for the qualitative makeup of the German people' (s. 1936, Klerusblatt, below) and the Sinti and Roma were criminalised and still are in a widespread manner. Their letters to escape their torture and deportation (and only very few individual priests, nuns and bishops had even bothered to write to Cardinal Bertram) were to no avail. Not surprisingly, when one sees that even now the predominant attitude of the Catholic church was and still seems to be that the Roma were baptised but ...
Romani Rose says that together with the other European Roma representatives he had handed over to Pope Benedict XVI. a request at a general audience for a private audience to commemorate and discuss the deportation, torture and forced sterilizations and medical experiments and killings of so many Roma in Nazi-Germany. Pope Benedict XVI. had not even answered the official request, when the article went to press a year later.
Although there were about 14 000 Catholics amongst the Sinti and Roma in Germany alone registered, the Catholic church as an institutional church did not stand up for them but was in parts even agreeing to the Nuremberg Laws against Jews and Non-Aryans 'as indispensable safeguards for the qualitative makeup of the German people' (s. 1936, Klerusblatt, below) and the Sinti and Roma were criminalised and still are in a widespread manner. Their letters to escape their torture and deportation (and only very few individual priests, nuns and bishops had even bothered to write to Cardinal Bertram) were to no avail. Not surprisingly, when one sees that even now the predominant attitude of the Catholic church was and still seems to be that the Roma were baptised but ...
Romani Rose says that together with the other European Roma representatives he had handed over to Pope Benedict XVI. a request at a general audience for a private audience to commemorate and discuss the deportation, torture and forced sterilizations and medical experiments and killings of so many Roma in Nazi-Germany. Pope Benedict XVI. had not even answered the official request, when the article went to press a year later.
1936 January An article in the Catholic Klerusblatt justifies the Nuremberg Laws against Jews and Gypsies (Non-Aryans) as indispensable safeguards for the qualitative makeup of the German people.
1936 January 15 Vicar General Riemer of Passau issues instructions allowing sterilized Catholics to receive the sacraments of matrimony, reversing the decision of January 4, 1935. (Lewy) This diocese was also Joseph Ratzinger's diocese for his native town Marktl am Inn.
1936 November Dr. Ritter, a psychologist and psychiatrist, begins his work on Gypsies in the Section for Research on Race-hygiene and Population Biology in the Reich Department of Health in Berlin, funded by the DFG. (Science) RECENTLY IT WAS MENTIONED THAT THE ELDERLY JEWS AND GYPSIES IN GERMANY ARE STILL AFRAID, ACCORDINGLY TO A NURSING CHARITY, TO BE ADMITTED TO GERMAN HOSPITALS AND NURSING HOMES FOR FEAR OF BEING SUBJECTED TO MURDER OR INHUMAN TESTING AND CRUELTY.
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Sigrid Countess von Galen
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