FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian refugees look out of a window on a train arriving from Odesa after crossing the Ukraine-Poland border, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as a Polish police officer keeps watch at Przemysl Glowny train station in Przemysl, Poland, April 21, 2022. REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi/File Photo

The Federal Government’s Antigypsy Commissioner Mehmet Daimaguler is deeply concerned about the situation of the Roma in Ukraine. The minority was “doubly and trebly affected by the horrors of this war,” said Daimaguler after a visit to Ukraine. According to him, this applies both to those who flee and to those who stay or have to stay. They have practically no access to help, they get food last or not at all. “At every stage of their escape, they are treated worse than other fugitives.” This realization ran like a red thread through all meetings that he himself, Daniel Strauss from the Federal Association of Sinti and Roma and the German Greens MP in the European Parliament, Romeo Franz, had there. Like Strauss himself, Franz belongs to the minority.

Franz called the extent of the discrimination against Roma in Ukraine “terrifying”, their life expectancy is “dramatically lower” than that of the rest of the population. All three were particularly shocked by the conditions in a camp near Lviv – it is one of twelve in the country – where around 150 people have to live in the forest without any form of infrastructure or sanitary facilities. And not just since the war. Only 30 percent of the approximately 400,000 Romani-speaking people in Ukraine live in the midst of mainstream society and are not ghettoized and cut off from it. However, this is often only possible at the price of denying that they belong to a minority. Roma settlements are bad or unprovided for, for example there were no offers to be vaccinated against the corona virus. So far, the communities have helped themselves, says Daimaguler, but these communities no longer exist due to the war.

On the other hand, the need for action is not always seen on the part of the state, added Daniel Strauss from the Federal Association of Sinti and Roma. For example, one of the interlocutors, who is responsible for ethnic politics and freedom of conscience, “placed the problems of the Roma “rather in the responsibility of the minority”. Daimaguler became clearer: “Some conversations were shocking.” When asked why children were segregated in school, the answer was that there was trouble with other parents because Roma children just didn’t wash. “A strong piece and victim blaming,” says Daimaguler, especially when you’ve just been in slums where there was a complete lack of water supply and sewerage. However, this perspective on Roma is “not just a Ukrainian problem”.

It’s “not about Ukraine bashing,” said Romeo Franz. There are prejudices against Sinti and Roma, antiziganism, everywhere in Europe. Ukraine, which belongs to Europe and now has the opportunity to “move into the European house”, but now also has the opportunity to “credibly give up its segregation policy in all areas” and thus become a model for other EU countries.

According to the findings of Daimaguler, Strauss and Franz, the background to this policy is probably also that many Roma who felt themselves to be Ukrainians and have lived there for generations do not have citizenship – which was already the case in Soviet times, but has changed over time continued after Ukraine’s independence. They are also not recognized as a national minority.

The antiziganism commissioner also referred to Germany’s responsibility: the current situation of the Ukrainian Roma has to this day had a lot to do with the Nazi occupation of Ukraine. Before the German troops attacked, many could have built up a modest level of prosperity, but then they became victims of war and the racist policy of annihilation of the German occupiers, expelled and killed. The few survivors were partly resettled, those who returned were left with nothing and found their houses and farms inhabited by non-Roma. “This past has had a massive impact on the situation of the Roma in Ukraine to this day. We Germans have a duty there,” said Daimaguler. According to Strauss, one met survivors of the Holocaust who were now experiencing war for the second time and had to flee.

Daimaguler also mentioned antiziganist incidents against Roma refugees in Germany since the start of the Russian war against Ukraine. There had been incidents at train stations where they had to leave trains, sometimes accompanied by uniformed police officers. It is not only the fault of the railways, but: “It is unbearable when the descendants of those who were driven to the death camps in wagons two generations ago are now treated racistly in the Deutsche Bahn.”