Earnestness alert....been on my mind for a while and I finally committed it to paper.  And made a donation to RAICES (link below).

Sidonie at the Border

Photo source: Dokumentations- und Kulturzentrum Deutscher Sinti und Roma

 

Those who think it’s a good idea to remove children from their parents and put them in detainment camps might be well advised to read Erich Hackl’s 1989 book, Farewell Sidonie (in German: Abschied von Sidonie). It’s out of print, but it’s available in German and in English translation on Amazon.  

Farewell Sidonie recounts the short life of a Roma (“gypsy”) girl whose mother left her in front of a hospital as an infant in 1933, and who was taken in and raised by a working-class couple in the Austrian town of Sierning.  Sidonie’s foster parents love her dearly.  After the third Reich comes to power, authorities at several levels pressure Sidonie’s parents to give her up.  Ultimately Sidonie is taken from her family.  An officious social worker delivers her to the detainment camp outside of town where other Roma, including some of Sidonie’s biological relatives, are located.  A few days later, the camp is dissolved and the residents are taken by train to Auschwitz/Birkenau.  Sidonie dies in Auschwitz shortly thereafter, of disease or heartbreak.

Hackl fictionalizes scenes and dialog, but the facts of Sidonie’s life, transport, and death are drawn from archival research, and from interviews with relatives and others who recalled the little girl’s presence in their community. 

So yeah, it’s tempting to mail a copy of this paperback to every member of the current administration.  But that’s not the real point of the book. 

The real point of the story is how LITTLE effort it would have taken to keep Sidonie safe and with the family that knows and loves her.  No-one in this story needs to be a hero, although Sidonie’s foster parents emerge as quietly heroic.  No-one needs to violate a direct order, or hide someone in an attic or basement, or endure hunger in order to feed someone who is ineligible for a ration card.  Ultimately, it is suggested, Sidonie would have remained safe had local neighbors, teachers, clergy and social service workers not repeatedly pointed out Sidonie’s differentness. Ultimately, an overzealous social worker goes out of her way to determine that Sidonie should be removed from her family and placed in an internment camp. The bar for keeping Sidonie safe is a low one, and the adults in Sidonie’s community repeatedly fail to meet it.

Then, as now, the community has their reasons.  Sidonie is a gypsy, not an Austrian citizen.  She is not a good student.  She will, it is suggested, ultimately be a drain on social resources.  Repeatedly, adults who come into contact with Sidonie feel that her presence is an affront: she should not be burdening their school system, their health care system, the foster care system.  And of course, her dark skin is a continuing affront to neighbors and the wider community.

Today this book reads not just as an indictment of our government, but as a challenge to each of us.  If simple inaction would have gone a long way toward protecting Sidonie, it seems like we could each take a simple action now to help protect the children at the United States border.  A call or letter to our congressperson documenting outrage, a donation to RAICES or to the ACLU's initiative to protect immigrant's rights perhaps. 

Today there is a public kindergarten named after Sidonie Adlersburg in the Austrian town of Sierning.   Let’s take action now, and not wait two generations and then name a public school after Jakelin Caal Maquin (age 7) or FelipeGomez Alonzo (age 8).