Essay
on:
Porrajmos1: The Roma Genocide
Seminar: European Policy and Practice Towards the Roma
Lectures: PhDr Laura Laubeova
PhDr Kimberly Strozewski
Written by: Christian Paulick
Christian.Paulick@web.de
April 29, 2006
1
"paw-RYE-mos" in Romani, a word which means "the Devouring.
http://www.geocities.com/~patrin/genocide.htm
Content:
1. Introduction
2. Persecution and „Final Solution“
3. Auschwitz
4. Persecution on the Balkans
5. Balance of the Genocide
6. Conclusion – The Forgotten Holocaust?
7. Bibliography
1
1. Introduction
In this essay I want to delineate at first the ideas which leaded to the Genocide,
after this the persecution of Roma and Sinti and finally the Porrajmos itself. By
this I will especially regard the concentration camp Auschwitz, as symbol for the
“Final Solution” and the persecutions on the Balkans. At the end of this essay I
will discuss the remembrance of this Genocide in Germany today and try to
answer the question if the mistreatment of Roma and Sinti is regarded as a
Genocide.
Roma and Sinti, commonly but inaccurately in German called “Zigeuner”2, were
living since 15th century in Germany. They were always regarded as strangers
and treated as outsiders. But this mistreatment is not to compare with the
persecution of Roma and Sinti in the Third Reich.
Especially in the 19th century Roma and Sinti became a subject in German policy.
This correlates with the increasing ideas of racism and social-darwinism. People
like Francis Galton, Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau and Houston
Chamberlaine took a stand for the idea that “Gypsies” and Jews were inferior
beings.3 In Germany the medicial doctor Alfred Ploetz was the first one who use
the term “Rassenhygiene”4.
In 1915 he founded the “Gesellschaft für Rassen-Hygiene“, what was an
important step to establish the ideas of races.
In the end of 19th century began the registration of all Roma and Sinti who were
living in the German area. Especially Bavaria has been a vanguard in this subject
with the aim to domesticate travelling people. In 1899 there was founded the
“Zigeunerzentrale”, leaded by Alfred Dillmann to record and monitor all
“Gypsies”.5 Six years later a book called “Zigeunerbuch” was published
containing 3350 descriptions6 of people belonging to the Roma or Sinti ethnic
“Zigeuner” is the German word for “Gypsies”. Although the group of “Gypsies” includes more groups
than the Roma and Sinti I am using the last term in the following, because it is more political correct so far
it will be possible.
3
Cp. Ritter 1992: 174.
4
Eugenics.
5
Cp. Till 2001: 220.
6
That means: Name, age, place of birth, profession, citizenship but also main characteristics and policy
record. In 1911 Roma and Sinti had to have a “Zigeunerausweis”, which included a photo ID and
fingerprint.
2
2
group. It was available in the book trade and a consequent breach of personal
rights.
During the Weimar Republic there was no change considering the Roma and
Sinti politics. Monitoring, sedentary-making and turnouts went on and other parts
of the Weimar Republic, for example Hesse, took over laws from Bavaria.
A “highlight” represents the “Zigeunergesetz” of 1926, again passed in Bavaria.
This law forced Roma and Sinti to work when they were at least 16 years old.
Otherwise they would be sent to workhouses.7 All this happened without
mentionable public protests.
7
Cp. Burleight 1992: 114-115.
3
2. Persecution and „Final Solution“
In 1933 when the Nazis came to power and began immediately to implement their
vision of the Third Reich 15,000 Roma and Sinti were living in Germany.8 The
„Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses“ (14.07.1933) was the first step
to realize the ideas of Eugenics. That law ordered sterilization of “mental
defectives” and was utilized also on Roma and Sinti. The Nuremberg Racial Laws
of 1935, ("Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor" and "Reich
Citizenship Law") also concerned Roma and Sinti and denied their citizenship.9
In the middle of the 1930´s began the first compulsory hospitalization of Roma
and Sinti into concentration camps, for example in 1936 at the Olympic Games in
Berlin, to present a “clean” city without any “asocial” and “criminals”.
A key figure in the nationalsocialism has been Robert Ritter, a medical doctor
who became the director of the “Rassenhygienische und Erbbiologische
Forschungsstelle des Reichsgesundheitsamtes” in Berlin.10 He was responsible
for the registration, exploration and classification11 of the “Gypsy race”.
“It was probably Ritter's "race-biological research" that brought SS-chief Heinrich
Himmler to draft him to his circle on "Combating the Gypsy Nuisance" on
December 8, 1938, recommending "the resolution of the Gypsy question based
on its essentially racial nature." He ordered the registration of all Gypsies in the
Reich past the age of six years and their classification into three racial groups:
Gypsies, Gypsy Mischlinge [part-Gypsies], and nomadic persons behaving as
Gypsies. Himmler, who oversaw the vast security empire that included the
Criminal Police, stated that the "aim of measures taken by the state to defend the
homogeneity of the German nation" included the "physical separation of
Gypsydom from the German nation."12
At a conference on racial policy on September 21, 1939, Heydrich decided upon
a “Final Solution of the Gypsy Question”. Decided was the relocation of Jews to
Poland, the systematic deportation of Jews from German territories and the
8
Cp. Till 2001: 33.
Cp. Krokowski 2001: 22-23.
10
Cp. Till 2001: 38.
11
If at least two of the grandparents were classified as “Mischlinge” the grandchild became counted as
“Zigeuner”. That is why the number of “Zigeuner” in the 3. Reich increased 1943 on 21.498 and 1944 on
23.933. Cp. Till 2001: 39.
12
http://www.holocaust-trc.org/sinti.htm
9
4
removal of 30,000 “Gypsies” to Poland. As a result were 5,500 in 1940 and 5,000
Roma and Sinti in 1941 deported to Poland. Most of them died.13 On December
16, 1941, Himmler ordered the “Auschwitzerlass” which meant that all Roma
remaining in Europe had to be deported to Auschwitz. The wording ran as
follows: „Die Einweisung erfolgt ohne Rücksicht auf den Mischlingsgrad
familienweise in das Konzentrationslager (Zigeunerlager) Auschwitz“. 14
13
14
Cp. Burleight 1992: 121-122.
Till 2001: 53.
5
3. Auschwitz
The first large transport of Roma and Sinti (200 from Buchenwald) arrived in
Auschwitz on February 16, the second on March 1, 1943. Soon the number was
rising fast and at the end of 1943 18,738 “Gypsies” had been registered by their
name.15 Because families were allowed to stay together, Roma and Sinti came
into the so called “Zigeuner-Familienlager”, situated in section B II e of the camp.
In the 22 “Zigeunerbaracken“ lived between 400 - 800 people in each. These
wooden huts originally were constructed for 52 horses each.16
The arrived “Gypsies” got numbers like the other prisoners. These numbers had a
“Z” for “Zigeuner” as prefix. Living conditions in the camp were absolutely
inhuman so that the weakest died at first. Until the liquidation of the family camp
in August 2, 1944 366 children were born there. The oldest of them became 401
days old.17
Roma and Sinti in Auschwitz were especially concerned by the medical
experiments that took place there, for example, by the research on malaria or
“finding a cheap and quick method of serilization”.18 A special interest of Josef
Mengele, the SS-medical doctor in the camp, was a “research” on twins.
Therefore he personally selected Roma and Sinti twins. “Mengele ermordete die
Zwillinge persönlich mit Herzinjektionen und schickte deren Augen zur weiteren
wissenschaftlichen Auswertung an das Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Anthropologie
in Berlin”.19
“The Gypsy camp was liquidated on the night of August 2-3, 1944, when 2,897
Sinti and Roma men, women, arid children were killed in the gas chamber. Some
1,400 surviving men and women were transferred to Buchenwald and
Ravensbrück concentration camps for forced labor.”20
Alltogether 23,000 Roma and Sinti were transported to Auschwitz. Only 3,000 of
them survived their stay there.
15
Cp. Lewy 2000: 152.
Cp. Till 2001: 54-55.
17
Cp. Till 2001: 59.
18
Lewy 2000: 161.
19
Heuß 1996: 114.
20
http://www.holocaust-trc.org/sinti.htm
16
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4. Persecution on the Balkans
The Genocide on Roma and Sinti was not limited on the Third Reich but
concerned also “Gypsies” in whole Europe. An example for this is the mass
murder on the Balkans, which began shortly after the attack on the Kingdom
Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941.
On May 30, 1941 the “Verordnung betreffend die Juden und Zigeuner” was
adopted.
„§ 18: Zigeuner werden wie Juden behandelt. § 19: Zigeuner ist der, der
mindestens drei zigeunerische Großeltern hat. Zigeunermischlinge, die mit
Zigeunern verheiratet sind, gelten als Zigeuner.“21 Concentration camps were
built where many Roma and Sinti perished.
The Nazis soon began to assert that “Gypsies“ are often working as „Partisanen“
and treated them accordingly. So there were killed hundred Jews or “Gypsies” for
every killed German soldier.22 By the “Partisanenbekämpfung” came more than 1
million non-guerrillas to death. Altogether 1,7 million people perished in Serbia.
How many Roma and Sinti were killed is not finally to ascertain.23
The Wehrmacht was involved into the “Massenerschießungen” what contradicts
the legend that the Wehrmacht did not participate into crimes of World War II. For
example, there were “Massenerschiessungen” on October 9 and 27, 1941 at
Pancevo (Serbia) where more than 2,000 Jews and “Gypsies” were executed.
Four month before the “Auschwitz Erlaß” Serbia was the first state where the
“Gypsy and Jew question” was completely “solved“.
In Croatia more than 90,000 Roma and Sinti were killed by the collaborating
“Ustascha-Regime”.24
21
Till 2001: 73.
Cp. Lewy 2000: 131.
23
Cp. Till 2001: 73-74.
24
Cp. Till 2001: 69-70.
22
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5. Balance of the Genocide
One of two Roma and Sinti did not survive the Porrajmos. Romani Rose, the
leader of the German Zentralrat der Roma und Sinti guesses that altogether
500,00025 Roma and Sinti perished by the Nazis. “Es gibt in Deutschland und
ebenso in den nationalsozialistisch besetzten Ländern unter den Sinti und Roma
keine Familie, die nicht unmittelbare Angehörige verloren hat”.26
Many of the perpetrators who were involved into the Porrajmos were not
punished. An example therefore is one of the heads of the Genocide on Roma
and Sinti, Robert Ritter, the former director of the “Rassenhygienische und
Erbbiologische Forschungsstelle des Reichsgesundheitsamtes”.
On December 1, 1947 he became the director of the “Fürsorgestelle für Nerven
und Gemütskranke”. He died one year later as a free man. The investigations
against him and his former staff members ended without an indictment.27 Some
of the perpetrators worked in the research in the FRG (Federal Republic of
Germany). For example, Dr. Erhard worked at the “Anthropologischen Institut in
Tübingen”. She used results that she has found out by her “researches” in the
time of the Third Reich.28
Roma and Sinti who survived the Porrajmos “were traumatized by the ordeal of
camp life, which not only had left them destitute but also demoralized. The routine
of the concentration camps had violated basic Gypsy customs such as the
requirements of ritual purity or the prohibition against being seen naked in public.
Many of the elders, who had been models of conduct, were no longer alive.
Those who had been sterilized had lost much of their sense of self-worth, for the
standing of Gypsy men and women in their families as well as in the larger
community depends heavily on fertility.”29
25
An exactly number is not is not finally to ascertain, especially for the Balkans and the former Sovjet
Union.. The data vary between 300.000-500.000.
26
Till 2001: 79.
27
Cp. Lewy 2000: 211-212.
28
Cp. Till 2001: 82.
29
Lewy 2000: 1999.
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6. Conclusion – The Forgotten Holocaust?
The discrimination against Roma and Sinti continued in Germany after the
collapse of the Third Reich. “In 1956, the Federal Court decided that they had
only been subjected to racial persecution from the 1943 deportation order
onwards. This was only backdated to 1938 in the early 1960s, by which time
many of the Nazi´s victims were dead. Up to that point, the Sinti and Roma´s
´asocial characteristics` apparently legitimated `police and security measures`
taken against them.”30
A compensation got only people who were German citizens. Roma and Sinti
whose citizenship was denied by the “Reichsbürgergesetz” did not get a
compensation. Another dark chapter is the fact that sterilization of Roma and Sinti
was not recognized as “alleiniger Verfolgungsschaden” by the “Bundesentschädigungsgesetz”. The Genocide was only officially acknowledged by
Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in 1982.31
In the same year the Central Council of Roma and Sinti in Germany was founded.
Its chairman Romani Rose has to fight this very day that the mass murder on
Roma and Sinti is regarded as Genocide. An example for this fight is the question
about the planned memorial for the victims of Nazi terror. The German
government wants to engrave an inscription at the memorial that uses the term
“Zigeuner”32. This designation is for the central council unacceptable. They insist
on the term “Roma and Sinti”. Since several years the discussion is going on
without a visible ending. In my oppinion, the undiscerning attitude of the German
government in respect of the complaints on the part of the Central Council of
Roma and Sinti regarding this insulting term “Zigeuner” symbolizes the treatment
of Roma and Sinti in Germany today. They are depreciated and still regarded as
social misfit.
The last point I want to discuss in this essay is the question if there has been a
Genocide on Roma in the Third Reich. Genocide is defined by the “Convention
30
Burleight 1992: 127.
He only spoke about Roma and Sinti in Germany, not about Eastern European “Gypsies”.
32
“Die traditionelle Bezeichnung entstand im vierzehnten Jahrhundert in Griechenland (atsinganoi:
Unberührbare) und wurde von dort in andere Sprachen übernommen (deutsch „Zigeuner“, französisch
„tsiganes“, italienisch „zingari“ und so weiter). Anderswo wurden die Zigeuner für Ägypter gehalten (daher
englisch „gypsies“, spanisch „gitanos“).“
http://www.faz.net/s/Rub117C535CDF414415BB243B181B8B60AE/Doc~EDCBDD7EBB48D42DABFB
9A916957E3B60~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
31
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on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” that was declared
by the UNO on December 9, 1948: “In the present Convention, genocide means
any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about
its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”33
The compensation policy in Germany shows that the term Genocide is not
regarded as a matter of course. In the work of historians can be also find several
people who deny the Genocide on Roma and Sinti.34 One example is Guenter
Lewy who writes: “In order to establish the commission of the crime of genocide,
an “intent” to destroy a group “as such” in whole or in part must be present.
Hence, in my view, the various deportations of Gypsies to the East and their
deadly consequences do not constitute acts of genocide. These deportations,
including the deportation to the Gypsy camp at Auschwitz, were put into effect not
out of an intent to destroy the Gypsies as such but in order to expel large
numbers of this widely despised minority from Germany”.35 In my oppinion, this
statement sounds very cynical and I am not able to agree with it, because all
points (unless point e) of the UNO definition of Genocide are applicable. With this
essy I wanted to show what Porrajmos means, as well as the remembrance of it
in Germany today. My inference is that the end of Roma and Sinti as social
outcast is going on. The quality of course changed but an acceptance of them is
not reached yet.
33
http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/text.htm#II
Cp. Wippermann 2005.
35
Lewy 2000: 222-223.
34
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7. Bibliography:
Asséo, Henriette; Frings, Karola; Heuß, Herbert; Sparing, Frank: Sinti und
Roma unter dem Nazi-Regime. 1. Von der „Rassenforschung“ zu den Lagern,
Interface-Reihe, Zentrum für Sinti- und Romaforschung, Edition Parabolis, Berlin
1996.
Burleigh, Michael; Wippermann, Wolfgang: The Racial State: Germany 19331945, University Press, Cambridge 1992.
Krokowski, Heike: Die Last der Vergangenheit. Auswirkungen
Nationalsozialistischer Verfolgung auf deutsche Sinti, Campus Verlag,
Frankfurt/New York 2001.
Lewy, Guenter : The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies, Oxford University Press,
Oxford 2000.
Ritter, Horst: Die Rolle der Anthropologie im NS-Staat. In: Pfeiffer (Hrsg.):
Menschenverachtung und Opportunismus. Zur Medizin im Dritten Reich,
Attempto Verlag Tübingen GmbH, Rottenburg 1992, S. 172-186.
Till, Bastian: Sinti und Roma im Dritten Reich. Geschichte einer Verfolgung, C.
H. Beck, München 2001.
Wippermann, Wolfgang: „Auserwählte Opfer?“ Shoah und Porrajmos im
Vergleich. Eine Kontroverse, Frank & Timme GmbH, Berlin 2005.
Internet:
http://www.geocities.com/~patrin/genocide.htm
http://www.holocaust-trc.org/sinti.htm
11
http://www.holocaust-education.dk/holocaust/sigojnerne.asp
http://www.tagesschau.de/aktuell/meldungen/0,1185,OID4112246_REF1,00.html
http://www.zeit.de/2004/34/Sinti__und__Roma?page=all
http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/text.htm#II
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