Romani Holocaust
In the late 19th century, German public discourse began to link social differences with racial differences through pseudoscientific theories. This period saw the emergence of Social Darwinism as a tool to justify prejudices against Jews and Roma. Proponents claimed that races had distinctly different biological origins rather than being variations of a single species. They established a purportedly scientific racial hierarchy that defined certain minority groups as the other based on biology. Industrial development during this era altered many aspects of society and shifted social norms regarding work and life. For the Roma community, these changes led to the denial of their traditional way of life as craftsmen and artisans. János Bársony notes that industrial development devalued their services as craftsmen, resulting in the disintegration of their communities and social marginalization. The concept of race was systematically employed in order to explain social phenomena during this time.
The Imperial Police Headquarters in Munich established the Information Services on Romani by the Security Police in 1899. Its purpose was to keep records including identification cards, fingerprints, and photographs while maintaining continuous surveillance on the Roma community. In 1904, Prussia adopted a resolution calling for regulation of Gypsy movement. The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior organized a conference in Munich in 1911 to discuss the "Gypsy problem" and coordinate efforts against Gypsies. Roma in the Weimar Republic were forbidden from entering public swimming pools, parks, and other recreational areas. They were depicted throughout Germany and Europe as criminals and spies. The 1926 Law for the Fight Against Gypsies, Vagrants and the Workshy became the national norm by 1929 after being enforced in Bavaria. This law stipulated that groups identifying as 'Gypsies' avoid all travel to the region. Those already living there had to be kept under control so that there was no longer anything to fear from them regarding safety in the land. Eight thousand Roma were processed with mandatory fingerprinting and photographing under a 1927 Prussian law requiring identity cards.
The Nazis established the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit in 1936. Robert Ritter headed this unit along with his assistant Eva Justin. Their mandate included conducting an in-depth study of the "Gypsy question" and providing data required for formulating a new Reich "Gypsy law." After extensive fieldwork in the spring of 1936 involving interviews and medical examinations, the unit decided that most Romani posed a danger to German racial purity. They concluded these individuals should be deported or eliminated. No decision was made regarding about 10 percent of the total Romani population of Europe, primarily Sinti and Lalleri tribes living in Germany. Heinrich Himmler suggested deporting the Romani to a remote reservation where pure Gypsies could continue their nomadic lifestyle unhindered. He took special interest into the Aryan origins of the Romani and distinguished between settled and unsettled Romani. In May 1942, an order was issued according to which all Gypsies living in the Balkans were to be arrested. The decree made it law to register all Roma over the age of six including those who traveled around in a Gypsy fashion.
On the 16th of December 1942, Himmler ordered that Romani candidates for extermination should be transferred from ghettos to the extermination facilities of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Some 23,000 Roma, Sinti, and Lalleri were deported to Auschwitz altogether. In concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Roma wore brown or black triangular patches symbolizing asocials, green ones for professional criminals, or less frequently the letter Z meaning Zigeuner. At least 19,000 of the 23,000 Roma sent to Auschwitz were murdered there. When SS guards tried to liquidate the Gypsy family camp in May 1944, they met with unexpected resistance. The inmates refused orders to come out after being warned and armed themselves with crude weapons like iron pipes and shovels. The SS chose not to confront the Roma directly and withdrew for several months. After transferring up to 3,000 capable laborers, the SS moved against the remaining 2,898 inmates on the 2nd of August. They murdered nearly all remaining inmates most of them ill elderly men women and children in the gas chambers of Birkenau.
The Nazi persecution of Roma was not regionally consistent across occupied territories. Between 3,000 and 6,000 Roma were deported from France to German concentration camps including Dachau Ravensbrück and Buchenwald. Further east in the Balkan states and Soviet Union Einsatzgruppen mobile killing squads traveled from village to village massacring inhabitants where they lived. Timothy Snyder notes that in the Soviet Union alone there were 8,000 documented cases of Roma murdered by the Einsatzgruppen in their sweep east. In Slovakia local collaborating auxiliaries killed Romani people while in Denmark and Greece local populations did not participate in the hunt for Roma as they did elsewhere. Ian Hancock said there was no record of any Roma killed in Denmark or Greece. Bulgaria and Finland although allies of Germany did not cooperate with the Porajmos just as they did not cooperate with the anti-Jewish Shoah. The Hungarian Arrow Cross government deported between 28,000 and 33,000 Romani out of a population estimated at around 70,000.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that just 285,650 Roma people were killed by the Nazis in Germany Axis countries and occupied territories. New findings reveal that the Roma death toll was at least about 200,000 to 500,000 of the 1 or 2 million Roma in Europe. Ian Hancock director of the Romani Archives and Documentation Center at the University of Texas at Austin discovered that almost the entire Romani population was killed in Croatia Estonia Lithuania Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Rudolph Rummel late professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii estimated that in total 258,000 were killed by the Nazi regime in Europe. He calculated 36,000 deaths in Romania under Ion Antonescu and 27,000 in Ustaše-controlled Croatia. Zbigniew Brzezinski has estimated that 800,000 Roma people were killed through Nazi actions. The Society for Threatened Peoples estimates Romani deaths at 277,100 while Martin Gilbert estimates more than 220,000 of 700,000 Romani in Europe were murdered including 15,000 mainly from the Soviet Union at Mauthausen between January and May 1945.
Another distinctive feature of both the Porajmos and the Holocaust was the extensive use of human subjects in medical experiments. The most notorious physician involved was Josef Mengele who worked in the Auschwitz concentration camp. The full extent of his work will never be known because the truckload of records he sent to Otmar von Verschuer at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute was destroyed by von Verschuer. Subjects who survived Mengele's experiments were almost always murdered and dissected shortly afterwards. One Roma survivor of medical experimentation was Margarethe Kraus. These experiments targeted Roma prisoners specifically as part of the racial classification efforts conducted by the Racial Hygiene unit. The destruction of documentation meant that many details about these atrocities remain lost to history despite their severity.
The German government paid war reparations to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust but not to the Romani. There were never any consultations at Nuremberg or any other international conference as to whether Sinti and Roma were entitled like Jews to reparations. West Germany recognized the genocide of the Roma in 1982 since then the Porajmos has been increasingly recognized as a genocide committed simultaneously with the Shoah. On the 23rd of October 2007 President Traian Băsescu publicly apologized for Romania's role in the Porajmos the first time a Romanian leader had done so. He called for the Porajmos to be taught in schools stating We must tell our children that six decades ago children like them were sent by the Romanian state to die of hunger and cold. On the 5th of May 2012 the world premiere of the Requiem for Auschwitz by composer Roger Moreno Rathgeb was performed at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam by The Roma and Sinti Philharmoniker directed by Riccardo M Sahiti. On the 24th of October 2012 the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism was unveiled in Berlin.
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Common questions
When did the Nazi regime begin systematic persecution of Roma people?
The Nazi regime began systematic persecution of Roma people in 1936 when they established the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit. This unit conducted fieldwork to study the Gypsy question and provided data for formulating a new Reich Gypsy law.
How many Roma were murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II?
At least 19,000 of the 23,000 Roma sent to Auschwitz were murdered there between 1942 and 1945. The SS liquidated the remaining 2,898 inmates on the 2nd of August 1944 after a resistance attempt by prisoners.
Who was responsible for ordering the extermination of Romani candidates from ghettos to Auschwitz?
Heinrich Himmler ordered that Romani candidates for extermination should be transferred from ghettos to the extermination facilities of Auschwitz-Birkenau on the 16th of December 1942. This order mandated the deportation of all Roma over the age of six living in occupied territories.
Which countries did not cooperate with the Porajmos genocide against Roma during World War II?
Bulgaria and Finland did not cooperate with the Porajmos just as they did not cooperate with the anti-Jewish Shoah. Romania deported between 28,000 and 33,000 Romani people under the Hungarian Arrow Cross government while Denmark and Greece had no recorded cases of Roma killed.
What is the estimated total number of Roma killed by the Nazis according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum?
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that just 285,650 Roma people were killed by the Nazis in Germany Axis countries and occupied territories. New findings reveal that the Roma death toll was at least about 200,000 to 500,000 of the 1 or 2 million Roma in Europe.