02 August 2009

Some things never change – Ceaucescu’s Romania.

In 1994 Academic and Romani human rights advocate Ian Hancock wrote an article called Ceauşescu’s Master Race and his Romani “Robot work Force” about the plight of Romani children in Romanian orphanages and the vile policies that led them to being there.

At the time of writing there were over 80,000 Children languishing in Romanian orphanages. This tragedy received extensive media coverage since the early 1990s, and the compassion of the world did turn toward them.

What the mainstream media did not report or did not widely report was that up to 80% of the infants in the orphanages were Romani, a fact that was not widely reported in the media reports. What is frightening is how so many Romani children ended up in the orphanages

Ceauscescu was essentially a Nazi (My words).

According to Ian Hancock’s article Ceauşescu had specific plans for the Romanies, which were grimly reminiscent of the centuries of Romani slavery in his country, not fully abolished until 1864. Ceaucescu also brought techniques of genetic engineering—based specifically on the race policies of Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany

The Romani children in the Romanian institutions are the result of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s plan to create a superior “Dacian” people by selective breeding and population engineering. Ceauşescu’s fascination with Hitler’s racial policies is no secret;. That was not too surprising, as Ceauşescu had always studied Hitler’s ‘charisma,’ and had repeatedly analysed the original Nazi films of Hitler’s speeches . . . In almost every speech, he recalls the Romanian people’s origins in proud
Roman and Dacian warriors, just as Hitler harped on the Aryans. . .”

Because he took pains to conceal his actions, however, and little documentation to substantiate them has so far come to light, the means by which he tried to accomplish his aims are only now being pieced together. The establishment of his “death camp” orphanages apparently pre-dated his open fascination with Hitler by some years:

Ceauşescu started the camps as early as 1965. there had been years of planning. When Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp, was discovered in January 1945, Nicolae Ceauşescu was 27 years old. Like the Nazis, Ceauşescu advocated racial purity. Years later, he would express his concern for, quote,“the new human type we intend to mold in our society.” Ceauşescu had Romania’s history books rewritten. He argued that the true Romanians were descended from Dacians, far more advanced than what he called the other “aboriginal” races . . . “superior even to ancient Rome.” Ceauşescu wanted a huge robot work force.

His intention was to breed on the one hand large numbers of “pure” Romanians and on the other, those who were to make up his “robot work force,” the status Romanies had endured as slaves for 550 years. In both cases, like the ancient Spartans, the weak were allowed to die, since they were of no use to either population. Women, married or not, were encouraged to have many children; they were rewarded publicly for having five or more, and birth control was made illegal. Romanian officials maintain that Romanies were not therefore discriminated against, since this policy affected them equally. The difference, however, lay in what was destined for each group. Because of the state of the Romanian economy, and the execution of Ceauşescu in December, 1989, this bizarre plan was never to materialize, but it has left a legacy in the surplus children who languish in the Romanian orphanages and whose bodies fill the mass graves reported by Terre des Hommes. That Romanies are treated as subhuman in modem Romania, where the very word Úigan (“Romani,” but synonymous with “slave” in the Romanian language), is the result of centuries of persecution rooted in Romanian history.

14 comments:

Sean Jeating said...

In the mid-90s I wrote about a couple of help transports to Romania. Alone, the eyes of some of these neglected apathetic children who obviously never had felt how it is to be hugged and kissed and tenderly cared for, I did not forget, since.
Well, and looking around in Slovakia, the Chech Republic, in Hungary and Italy (to name but four countries) - it goes on and on.

Again, Jams: Good on you.

James Higham said...

It never changes, does it? Same old story.

jams o donnell said...

I dearly wish it would change James

Sean it does. the Romani were at the bottom of teh pile and still are. It is an awful situation

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Dreadful. I agree with your strong sentiments. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, jams. Have you read, "Bury Me Standing" by Isabel Fonseca?

Claude said...

Thank you, Jams, for your recent posts. Painful to read but it's important that we know. I don't have words. Just revulsion for the monsters, and tears for the victims.

Frank Partisan said...

What's the situation today?

jams o donnell said...

Wlashcakes Claudia thanks for your comments

Ren. The situation is still not good for Rroma

James Higham said...

Jams, mail for you.

CherryPie said...

It is sad that these cycles keep repeating. Maybe man will learn one day...

jams o donnell said...

One can only hope Cherie

Roland Dodds said...

Life under the Ceausescu regime was bizarre and disgusting beyond belief, even when compared to fellow communist dictatorships. I had already heard about his regimes attempt to expand the Romanian population significantly to use as laborers and soldiers for the regime, but the engineering aspect is one I was not aware of. Frightening.

jams o donnell said...

Ceausescu was a particularly vile charachter even among his peers!

Peter Fogarty said...

It is terrible how the gypies are treated in Romania - though their treatment is worse in large towns than in the smaller mountain villages.

The second problem in Romania is that amazing amounts of money gets syphoned off by the owners of charities here - they seem to have 2 houses and a Jeep... and you wonder where did all this cash come from and can only conclude it came from people in the UK donating what they thought would help the kids...

Even the shoebox appeal failed here - as all the boxes were opened and cherry picked, leaving all the rubbish behind for the children!

jams o donnell said...

THat is terrible Peter. On a happier not I do love your site