Coronavirus: Europe’s forgotten Roma at risk

April 04, 2020

People with preexisting medical conditions are most at risk of contracting COVID-19, as well as those working in the health care sector. But in Europe, another group is in particular danger — and yet, they’ve been mostly overlooked.

Millions of poor Roma in Central and Southeastern Europe, most of whom live in cramped conditions without access to health care and basic sanitation, are facing a humanitarian disaster. Those who already earn a meager living by collecting junk and plastic or selling food, household products and flowers are currently unable to carry out even this informal work.

Read more: Coronavirus: Are less-developed EU countries more susceptible?

Roma rights groups are alarmed

The community, which suffers racism and discrimination at the best of times, is now being treated with even more stigmatization. On top of general measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, authorities in Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria have introduced additional restrictions to put Roma communities under quarantine, sometimes resorting to the use of police and military force.

Roma rights groups across Europe are alarmed. The Central Council of German Sinti and Roma recently expressed concern that “right-wing extremist and nationalist politicians in Central and Southeast Europe would use the current corona crisis to legitimize and implement their racist government action.”

“Instead of seeking additional ways to protect these particularly vulnerable members of our societies as coronavirus spreads, some politicians have actively fueled anti-Gypsyism,” said Czech MP Frantisek Kopriva, the rapporteur for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on discrimination against Roma and Travellers in the area of housing, in late March.

‘Catastrophic’ neglect

An estimated 10 to 12 million Roma live in Europe, making up the continent’s largest minority group. About half live in seven countries: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and North Macedonia. This is also where some of the most infamous Roma settlements are located, for example Lunik IX on the outskirts of Kosice in eastern Slovakia, Stolipinovo in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Ferentari in the Romanian capital, Bucharest and Shuto Orizari near the North Macedonian capital, Skopje.

Read more: Poland’s Roma community battles discrimination

In all these settlements, families live in extremely cramped conditions, with three or four generations often sharing only one or two rooms. Infrastructure is poor, there is little access to clean, running water and sewage systems are broken or rudimentary at best.

These are ideal conditions for the spread of the contagious coronavirus. But instead of trying to prevent the pandemic from spreading by remedying the substandard conditions, the authorities are using repressive measures to clamp down further on Roma communities.

Zeljko Jovanovic, director of the Open Society Roma Initiatives Office in Berlin, said it would be catastrophic if the Roma population continued to be neglected. “The majority society has not yet understood that unemployment among Roma is bad for the whole economy, and right-wing extremist attacks against Roma are bad for democracy,” he told DW. “Now, it has to become clear that poor health conditions for Roma have direct and immediate consequences for non-Roma.”

Social programs urgently needed

Slovakia’s new center-right populist coalition government has acknowledged the problem, but has resorted to dubious methods to address it. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Igor Matovic announced mass COVID-19 testing in 33 Roma settlements, especially for those people who had just returned from abroad. The tests were scheduled to begin on Friday, and would be carried out by military doctors accompanied by soldiers. Depending on results, people would either be quarantined in state-run institutions, or whole settlements would be placed under quarantine.

Read more: Coronavirus: Rule of law under attack in southeast Europe

Matovic insisted the use of the military to impose these measures was not a “state demonstration of strength,” but was to ensure the safety of the Roma themselves. Abel Ravasz, the government’s former emissary for the Roma communities, told the Slovak news portal Parameter that the use of the army would only further stigmatize the Roma instead of giving them the impression that the state was their partner.

In Romania and Bulgaria, police have cordoned off several of the larger Roma settlements. Many inhabitants had come back from abroad in recent days and violated the quarantine regulations. In the Roma community of Tandarei, in southeastern Romania, dozens of masked police are now patrolling the streets. The situation is the same in the Roma districts of Nova, Sagora, Kazanlak and Sliven in Bulgaria.

Read more: How the ‘Germans’ are changing the largest Roma enclave in Europe

Throughout the region the state has provided little help to the Roma, though there have been some exceptions. In some parts of Slovakia local authorities have provided access to clean water with mobile units, while in Cluj, Romania the city distributed packages containing food and sanitary products to 300 families living on the outskirts near the landfill.

In Hungary, Roma rights activist Aladar Horvath has called for a special social program for the inhabitants of segregated settlements. In a letter to the government and President Janos Ader, he proposed a nine-point crisis management program. “In the ghettoized areas, people have no savings, no provisions and no medical care. People are worried that they will soon not be able to feed their children,” he wrote.

He has yet to receive an answer.

Remembering Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma

Serving the fatherland

Many German Sinti fought for Germany not only in the First World War but also in the Wehrmacht from 1939 on. In 1941 the German high command ordered all “Gypsies and Gypsy half-breeds” to be dismissed from active military service for “racial-political reasons.” Alfons Lampert and his wife Elsa were then deported to Auschwitz, where they were killed.

Remembering Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma

Measuring and registering race

Eva Justin, a nurse and anthropologist, learned the Romani language to gain the trust of Sinti and Roma. As a specialist in so-called scientific racism, she traveled through Germany to measure people and create a complete registry of “Gypsies” and “Gypsy half-breeds” — the basis for the genocide. She and others researched family ties and and assessed churches’ baptismal records.

Remembering Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma

Locked up and dispossessed

In the 1930s, Sinti and Roma families were in many places forced into camps on the outskirts of town, surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by guards with dogs, like here in Ravensburg in southwestern Germany. They were unable to leave. Their pets were killed. They had to work as slave laborers. Many were forcibly sterilized.

Remembering Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma

Deportation in broad daylight

In May 1940 Sinti and Roma families were sent through the streets of the town of Asperg in southwestern Germany to the train station and deported directly to Nazi-occupied Poland. “The dispatchment went smoothly,” a police report noted. Most of those deported traveled to their deaths in work camps and Jewish ghettos.

Remembering Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma

From school to Auschwitz

Karl Kling appears on this class picture from Karlsruhe in the late 1930s. He was collected from school in spring 1943 and sent to the “Gypsy Camp” at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he became one of the victims of the genocide. Survivors reported that before being deported they had been marginalized in their schools and sometimes weren’t even able to take part in lessons.

Remembering Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma

Greeted with an evil lie

“I can work,” thought nine-year-old Hugo Höllenreiner when he arrived at Auschwitz in a cattle car with his family in 1943. He was greeted by the phrase “Arbeit macht frei” (“work will set you free”) above the entrance. It offered hope, Höllenreiner remembered later. He wanted to help his father work: “Then we could be free again.” Only one out of every ten people deported to Auschwitz survived.

Remembering Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma

Brutal experiments by the ‘Angel of Death’

Notorious SS doctor Josef Mengele worked at Auschwitz. He and his colleagues tortured countless prisoners. They mutilated children, infected them with diseases and carried out brutal experiments on twins. Mengele sent eyes, organs and entire body parts back to Berlin. In June 1944, he sent the head of a 12-year-old child. He escaped Europe after the war and never faced trial.

Remembering Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma

Liberation comes too late

When Russia’s Red Army arrived at Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, children were among the prisoners. But for the Sinti and Roma, the liberation came too late. On the night of August 2-3, 1944, the officers in charge of Auschwitz ordered those remaining in the “Gypsy Camp” sent to the gas chambers. Two children came crying out of the barracks the next morning and were subsequently murdered.

Remembering Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma

Racially persecuted

After the concentration camps were liberated, allied and German authorities issued survivors certificates of racial persecution and imprisonment. Later, many people were told they had only been persecuted for criminal reasons, and their requests for compensation were denied. Hildegard Reinhardt (above) lost her three young daughters in Auschwitz.

Remembering Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma

Calling for recognition

In the early 1980s, representatives of the Sinti and Roma communities staged a hunger strike at the entrance of the former Dachau concentration camp. They were protesting the criminalization of their minority and calling for the recognition of Nazi persecution. In 1982, then-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt officially recognized the Sinti and Roma as victims of Nazi genocide.

Remembering Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma

A memorial in Berlin

In 2012, a memorial for the Sinti and Roma victims of Nazi persecution was erected near the Bundestag in Berlin. The site is a reminder of the fight against discrimination for the world’s Sinti and Roma, particularly on International Romani Day. To this day, members of the minority still experience discrimination in Germany and around Europe.

Author: Andrea Grunau