Speech by Cornelia Maurer at the memorial event on March 15, 2024 at the Stuttgart Nordbahnhof

Dear attendees,

      My name is Cornelia Maurer and I represent the Indus Art and Culture Association of the Sinti in Stuttgart. As the wife of Stephan Lauster, the first chairman of the association, I stand before you today to commemorate together with you.

      The names we find on this memorial and on this wall tell a story full of pain and suffering. But they also tell of community, neighbourliness and friendship. 

      The names Lauster, Reinhardt,Guttenberger, Winter,Winterstein, Schneck and many others are inextricably linked with the history of our community.

      But this community was overshadowed by a dark time when inhuman ideologies took over.   

      Monsters planned and carried out the systematic murder of millions of innocent people.

       It was not only the Sinti and Jews or Romanians, not only French, Yenish, Roma, Russians, Italians or Spaniards. They were people of different cultures, women, men, children, families! ----- all of them -- were victims of an unspeakable horror.

      And yes... there were also Germans among the victims. Young people who were abused as cannon fodder at the age of 13 or 14, who were put in Minni submarines and sent to their deaths. The atrocities of the Nazis did not stop at anyone.

      It's up to us--- to learn from this history. 

      It is up to us --- keep alive the memory of the past and exhort young people to be vigilant. 

      With today's knowledge, we can prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again. It's our job, it's our duty.

With this in mind, I ask you to: 

To hold a moment of silence with me, 

to remember all those who lost their lives.

Lauster, Winter, Reinhard,Guttenberger, Winterstein, Schneck and many others who were pressed into cattle cars today, on this very day--- in this place---  in order to send them to their deaths with the clear intention.

 

This is this place!

That's what happened here, exactly 81 years ago!

      May their suffering never be forgotten.

 INDUS Art and Culture of the Sinti e.V. Stuttgart sees this as a joint obligation. Personally, I am neither Roma nor German, Jewish nor Sinti. I come from Transylvania, from Romania. What I'm trying to say is,

It is a general obligation to commit ourselves to ensuring that something like this never happens again.

      At this point, I would like to quote Charlie Chaplin, who was also a Sinti: In the name of democracy, let's fight for that. 

 

Thank you.

 

14.03.2024
 

INDUS Civilisation

Cultur and Origin of the Sindhu ethnic Group

                  In the mists of time, as more than 7000 years ago, emerged on a part of Pakistan and India of today, in an area between the Himalayas and China, HinduKush and Persia and along the Indus until its influence in the Arabian Sea, in the so-called INDUS VALLEY, the oldest known civilization on earth. Older than ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Indus rises in the Himalayan mountains, flows through Tibet and Khasmir and forms after more than 3000 km a delta in the province of Sindh, which also bears his name, then it flows into the Arabian Sea. 

                   The river Indus is a modified name. In the ancient Sanskrit language, Indus is called SINDHU . Sindhu in Sanskrit became "the flow of life" after some translations. Vedic cosmology says that the souls born on earth would come out of the water and return to the water at the moment of death, to the ocean, which is the all-encompassing universe, back to the Creator. When studying the Vedas in Sanskrit, one discovers that this word is actually due to "the way to fulfillment or "the path to spirituality ", which must find something like "the soul in constant flow through the material world, on earth, through its own experiences and teachings and return to the universal ocean, to the Creator".

                    The natives, the nomadic tribe of the Mohanians, who had lived their lives along this river for thousands of years, gave it the name Sindhu. As the elders of this tribe who still exist today say, their ancestors all descended from the great mountain, they built the great cities of the past and after death they all returned to the great mountain. In their annals and according to the Vedic scriptures, this mountain is Mount Mero in the Himalayan range. The members of this tribe of Mohan would, according to certain opinions, be the descendants of the Titans who built the monumental cities, MoHenjo Daro, Harappa and many other wondrous ancient buildings. It remains a mystery and a question of who and why the name of the Sindu River changed to Indus? There has been much speculation about the translation of the word Mo Henjo Daro. After studying the original constitution of the Vedas in Sanskrit, one finds according to compositions that this word is translated as "my great city", this opinion is also held by the members of the Mohan tribe. 

                    The Sindhu language does not originate from Sanskrit, but is largely Sanskrit and Vedic. One of the oldest languages on earth was developed there along the Sindhu River. If you have the opportunity to meet these Mohan tribes today, you will be surprised to hear that 70 percent of them express themselves in Sanskrit and Vedic. You will also be amazed to hear how their elders (some of whom live to be over 100 years old) tell oral history about their origins from the Great Mountain,about the inhabitants of MoHenjo Daro, about their philosophy and their cosmology. Later, the inhabitants who dismounted from their boats and began to cultivate and live in the delta of Sindh were of course called Sindho or Sindhi. In order not to go into detail now, it is to say that part of this civilization has migrated from Sindhu to the whole world over the millennia due to wars, natural disasters and many other events. In Europe, most of them settled in France, Spain, Germany, less in Hungary, Russia and Romania. In these latter countries, more members of the Roma tribe have emigrated, which is something else and not part of the civilization of Sindhu.

                   We will talk about this in future articles. Incidentally... To speak "Romanes" does not mean to speak a Roma language or a Sindhu language, it is very misunderstood, Romanes is not a language, it is a word that refers to "a kind of being", to be Romanes means to be a person who behaves in society as it is called "Romanes", It is a reference to the way of being, a definition of behavior. Even among Romas (Romi) there are few who know this. This definition comes from the Sanskrit language and is explained in the Vedas, to which we will return in other articles, as well as to the origin of the Roma ethnicity. A true Sindho, who still knows his roots and his original language before he is mixed with linguistic influences from the immigration countries, expresses himself with: "Sindadikes" when he asks a fellow citizen if he speaks the Sindhi language. The Sinti/Sindho does not ask like most who have forgotten: Havea Romanes?. In summary, Sindho is a male person of the Sinti ethnicity - and not Sinti - as it is misspelled and pronounced, and a female person is called Sindaca/Sindhiyca, which also has its roots in Sanskrit. The spoken language is Sindhi and has nothing to do with the language or with the ethnic Roma. Sindhi have preserved their roots in the province of Sindh and for thousands of years their ancient traditions and language, withstanding persecution, discrimination, humiliation and all other circumstances to which history has subjected them, and have remained faithful to their customs, belonging and ancestry through oral traditions for more than 7000 years. This civilization in the Sindhu (Indus) Valley, still completely undeciphered, full of secrets and questions, has left its mark, partly in consciousness, traditions, cosmology, religion, and the way of life of the Sindhi ethnic group.                         Persecuted, exterminated, discriminated against, catalogued as gypsies, by decrees drafted by statesmen to consider them as non-human, (i.e. a kind of animal) who could be shot and killed without having to punish the executor ... All these discriminations have contributed over time to the fact that many important personalities, established actors, great artists and musicians, brilliant minds in various scientific fields, out of fear or shame, have denied that they are part of this nation, thus saving their reputation and career. In the following articles we will publish a list of personalities of Sindhi origin.

               Unfortunately, I am personally not Sindho, although I would like to be proud to be part of such a genetic origin, from where more than 5000 years ago BC, the history of this Shindu (Indus) civilization, which has its remains in this discriminated people, began on the summit of the Himalayas, on their sacred mountain Mera. About the Caytans on Mount Mera and about Mera Glacier, more about this in the other article.... 

              Our organisation will fight to rehabilitate the reputation of this ethnicity, to explain its origins its history, customs, philosophy and to establish its belonging to a people as old as hardly any other on earth. With their philosophy and culture, the Sindhis have inspired and influenced many other peoples through their migration, only the famous Spanish Flamengo is actually the mourning dance of the Sindhi and was expropriated by the Spaniards. The "Sindhi /Sinti) Jazz" was founded by Jango Reinhard and is now part of the recognized Jazz Genere. (Sinti JAZZ) .And many other interesting revelations you will find here on our blog in the near future. In future articles, we will explain the story as it was before it was damaged and altered.

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