Skip to main content

Către: Ministry of Labor and Social Justice of Romania

Justice for the Roma survivors of the Holocaust!

Honorable Minister Lia-Olguţa Vasilescu,

We request that the Ministry of Labor and Social Justice eliminate abusive practices that prevent the remaining survivors of the Roma deportations to Transnistria to benefit from their legal rights, in accordance with Law 189/2000: a monthly allowance of 400 lei for two years of deportation, medical treatment, and a burial plot free of cost.

These minimal measures, to which survivors are entitled, have been systematically impeded by the regional pension offices that have interpreted the law discretionarily and unequally. For example, some request archival documents which have not yet been processed by archives (a situation the survivors cannot be faulted for), while others impose requirements for witnesses that cannot be met realistically (i.e. witnesses are expected to have been at least 10 years old at the time of the deportation to be considered “credible”, when the advanced age of all survivors today means that they were young children in 1942).

As you may know, The Final Report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania was a document officially recognized in 2004 by the state. The report finds that 1) Romania participated in the Holocaust through its actions, among which included deportations and internments in Transnistria and 2) that Roma who were deported to Transnistria by the Romanian government during the Antonescu regime were a victim category.

We ask the Labor Ministry to immediately adopt the correct application of the law, which will grant these minimum compensations for Transnistrian Holocaust survivors.

De ce este important?

Firstly, few Roma survivors of the deportations to Transnistria are still living. The Romanian Government "recognizes", "assumes" and "respects" in conventions and declarations for its actions from 1941-1944, but in actuality ignores and humiliates those surviving the horrors.

Since 2000, when Roma survivors received the legal framework which would have allowed them a small pension (a meager: 400 RON, >100 USD), Romania delayed its implementation of the law in the case of dozens of Roma who took their applications to local pension offices that interpreted the law as they saw fit, asking them for documents and evidence outside of the realm of reasonableness.

Secondly, time is of the essence to provide assistance. With each month that these pensions are postponed, the number of survivors decreases. Most are over the age of 85, and are nearing the end of their humble and modest lives. To rectify this moral wrong, the State budget would be very minimally affected. The pension would go a long way in providing a good faith gesture by the Romanian state for those survivors for the suffering they endured at the hands of the Romanian regime.

Currently, the bad faith of the Romanian state authorities continues to victimize these survivors until the last day of their lives. However, it’s not too late to provide justice for Romani victims the deportations to Transnistria, which is a respect and a right that they deserve.

Actualizări

2017-03-04 10:37:56 +0200

S-a ajuns la 25 semnături

2017-03-03 17:04:10 +0200

S-a ajuns la 10 semnături