Rome and Cinti Union
The Rome and Cinti Union (RCU), based in Hamburg, is a non-profit association registered in 1983 "for the protection against persecution and for the promotion of Rome and Cinti as a national minority".
In contrast to the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma , which claims to represent the interests of the Roma of German citizenship, who have long lived in Central Europe and relies in particular on family associations of German Sinti , the interests and needs of all Roma and Roma living in Germany stand at the Rome and Cinti Union The focus is on Sinti, especially Roma migrants , who have come to Germany in increasing numbers since the 1960s as recruited workers or as refugees and displaced persons and who as a rule do not belong to the Sinti subgroup.
The board of the association consists of the chairman Rudko Kawczynski , who was born in Krakow in 1954 and immigrated with his family to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1956, the managing director Karl Heinz Weiß, a German Sinto, and three other members.
The establishment of the association resulted from the experiences of the "Gypsy Law Mission" from the 1960s and the unsuccessful efforts of Roma refugees at the beginning of the 1980s to advocate for their concerns in the self-organizations that have been developing and establishing themselves since the 1970s to find "German Sinti and Roma". Above all, the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, said Yaron Matras, who at the time was primarily responsible for press work and relations with international organizations, resolutely opposed this. He had instructed his member associations not to support the non-German Roma refugees after they were increasingly abusing "their guest status in our country", impairing the image of the - in the diction of the Central Council - "German Sinti and Roma" and thus that of them Members of the minority German citizenship already made progress ruined. In the view of many "German Sinti and Roma", who often set themselves apart from the Roma who have recently arrived in Germany, especially those from Southeastern Europe, the Rome and Cinti Union and their colleagues are reviving the undesirable image of the "Gypsy" as a homeless eternal wanderer . This view is supported by the Sinti who emphasize their assimilation, especially in the context of the Central Council, by the fact that the RCU z. B. was involved in matters relating to the Braun car park, which was used as a transit point for Sinti living "on the road".
No different from the self-organizations of German Roma belonging to different subgroups (Sinti, Lalleri, Lovara , etc.) in their early years , the Rome and Cinti Union saw itself as the initiating part of a social movement made up of Roma and non-Roma. The methodological repertoire included high-profile actions and the practice of limited rule breaking. In doing so, the displacement situation in Southeastern Europe and the question of the right to stay were placed in the context of the persecution of the European Roma under National Socialism. A hunger strike in February 1989 on the site of the former Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg, or a few months later a symbolic camp of several weeks there as a protected refuge, where asylum seekers publicly burned their ID cards , received a lot of media attention .
In the meantime, the Rome and Cinti Union has turned away from its action-oriented beginnings with increasing recognition and establishment. She mainly provides social work and legal advice, but also speaks to the public on questions of the right to stay.
Remarks
- ↑ Yaron Matras: The Development of the Romani Civil Rights Movement in Germany 1945-1996, in: Susan Tebbutt (Ed.): Sinti and Roma in German-speaking society and literature. (Research on literary and cultural history; 72). Frankfurt am Main u. a. 2001, pp. 49-63, here: pp. 57 ff.
- ↑ Kathrin Herold: The memory is occupied. Right to stay protests by the Rom & Cinti Union at the Neuengamme concentration camp memorial. Master's thesis, Bremen 2006, here: p. 27.
literature
- Katrin Herold, "The memory is occupied". Right to stay protests of the Rom & Cinti Union at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, Bremen 2007 (Master's thesis), see: PDF
- Yaron Matras, The Commissioner for Foreigners informs. Roma and Cinti in Hamburg, Hamburg undated (1991)
- Yaron Matras, The Development of the Romani Civil Rights Movement in Germany 1945–1996, in: Susan Tebbutt (Ed.): Sinti and Roma in German-speaking society and literature. (Research on literary and cultural history; 72). Frankfurt am Main u. a. 2001, pp. 49-63
- Katrin Reemtsma , Sinti and Roma. History, culture, present, Munich 1996