I’ve lived in this country for over six years now and still it has the ability to surprise and shock me. Recently I’ve been giving English lessons to my neighbour, who lives down stairs, in return for additional German practice. At first she was a little reluctant to talk to me about her past, eventually she confided in me that she was Jennish (pronounced Yenish). This is one of the local names for gypsies.
Over the following weeks I learnt a lot about the life of Jennish in Switzerland. They have a bad press (not entirely unearned), in some ways similar to the general reputation of the Gypsies in the UK. That is the wandering lifestyle (although my neighbour doesn’t), the questionable honesty (although my neighbour is as honest as most people I know and more honest than some), the selfishness (my neighbour isn’t – in fact quiet the reverse) and the astuteness with money (here she scores a bulls-eye).
It was during our talks about the bias against the Jennish that she told me a shocking piece of this country’s history. Up until 1974 there was policy of forcibly removing Jennish children from their families, putting them into orphanages under new names, denying their families access, punishing the children for any lapse or indication of Jennish practices beliefs or speaking their own language (In some cases ECT was used to enforce changes of behaviour.) and eventually farming them out for adoption. My neighbour had a video dramatising the facts of the story which she showed me, more recently the BBC has run a radio play on the subject too.
To me it shows that some of the darkest acts that human beings commit arise out of a belief we know how the lives of others should be, even when those beliefs are well intentioned.
I suppose every country's history has a dark side. However, that these events
occured during my life-time is a chilling thought
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