Do you remember the
Holocaust?
If you are too young, do you at least remember the books you read in school, and the projects you spent hours
working on?
I remember the Hiding Place, The Diary of Anne Frank and Night. These books shook me to the core.
I certainly remember the Dachau Concentration Camp I visited in 2004 and 2006. It’s
eerie. It’s history. It’s horrible. Ghosts haunt the place. The grounds creep
me out.
The truth is that thousands of Jews,
Slavs, Roma, and so-called
“Mischlinge”
along with Communists, homosexuals, the mentally and physically
disabled, and others were discriminated and persecuted there. They were cast-out.
This happened.
I want to expand more on a people group that I have met here in Romania, a
people group Americans do not learn much about, the Roma, aka the gypsies.
(photo by Kathryn Gironimi)
According to Wikipedia (2010) the total number of Roma killed during World War
II has been variously estimated at between 220,000 to 1,500,000; even the
lowest number would count as one of the largest mass murders in history. In
post-1945, communist Eastern Europe restricted the Roma language and music from
public performance. In Czechoslovakia, they were labeled as a “socially
degraded stratum”.
Today, the gypsy people are still very much outcast in Romania and the rest of
Europe. They are given labels like “thieves”, “uneducated”,
and “troublemakers.”
Let me clarify, these names did come from somewhere: gypsies have been known to steal things and gypsies
have high rates of school drop-outs.
But why?
It is my understanding that gypsies are not given equal opportunities; they are
not treated as worthy to be helped. Let me explain further: Some think it is okay to help the poor, but not the gypsy poor because it is too dangerous.
Many Romanians simply “do not like gypsies.”
Observation: They did NOT try to steal my sunglasses, only posed for a picture and handed them back.
Let us learn from the past. Let us begin to CHANGE how
the world thinks. We are no more special than our neighbor. Jesus described
“our neighbor� as the man we pass on the street, the one without a home. He
explained that the Samaritan was the only one to recognize this, who recognized
this man as Jesus.
Let’s begin to act out of love, (not good versus evil, that was the old testament law, and it was flawed).
Tell the gypsy child that he has a new identity, He is a child of God. Tell the
thief he is blessed. Tell the street kid he has a future. Tell the prostitute
she is worthy. Tell the cast-out he is loved. Tell the abandoned they are
found. Give the cast-out
hope. Give them your faith. Give them God’s love.
This is how Jesus loves.
That is how His followers should love. Let’s try it.
