Roma Holocaust
Essay for
"Explaining the Nazi Holocaust"
"It does not do any service to the cause of the Romani people to mix them up in the same
analytical framework with the Jews by defining the Holocaust as pertaining to both
Gypsies and Jews" (Yehuda Bauer). Discuss.
Martin Weiser
2007
Table of Contents
Introduction... 1
1
Persecution of the Gypsies...2
1.1
Romani before 1933 ... 2
1.2
The Gypsies under the Nazi
Herrschaft
... 2
1.2.1
First discriminatory measures... 2
1.2.2
The "Gypsy problem" as a racial one ... 3
1.2.3
Zigeunerlager
and concentration camps... 3
1.2.4
"Combating the Gypsy Plague"... 4
1.2.5
Deportations to the East... 4
1.2.6
Campaign of annihilation ... 4
1.2.7
The Auschwitz decree ... 5
1.2.8
Gypsy Family Camp at Auschwitz ... 5
1.2.9
The death toll... 6
2
The treatment of Gypsies and Jews compared... 7
2.1
Nazi perception of both groups... 7
2.2
Decision making process... 8
2.3
Discrimination because of behaviour or because of race?... 9
2.4
The treatment of
Mischlinge
... 9
2.4.1
Migratory and sedentary Gypsies... 10
2.5
Gypsy Family Camp at Auschwitz... 10
2.6
Question of Genocide ... 11
Conclusion... 12
Bibliography... 13
1
Introduction
The 20
th
century is sometimes called the "centrury of genocide". Never before have people been
killing each other on such a scale, with so sophisticated methods and techniques, for so many reasons
and seemingly without any scrupules or mercy. Untold masses of humans fell victims to these
massacres. From South West Africa and Armenia to Cambodia and Rwanda, there were a number of
genocides. A number of genocides, but just one Holocaust.
Or, was there just one?
Most of the scholarly attention devoted to the subject of Holocaust has, not surprisingly, been focused
on the Jewish experience during the Nazi period. The study of the Gypsy
1
experience during the same
period has been largely underrepresented in the historiography discussions. Therefore, in this paper I
will concentrate on the Porrajmos
2
. The main aim of this work is to find out if and eventually to what
extent the Shoah and the Porrajmos are comparable.
In the first half I deal with the persecution of the Gypsies solely. I describe the main characteristics of
the treatment of the Gypsies by the Nazis as well as mention the main laws and decrees that dealt
with the issue. I tried to approach the subject as objectively as possible.
In the second part of this paper my own believes become much more pronounced. I discuss and
compare the Nazi treatment of Jews and Gypsies; touch upon the most debated and controversial
issues and above all analyze the main differences in the treatment of these two groups.
Based on the facts from the first chapter and deriving from the discussion in the second chapter I
shall then try to draw conclusions concerning Yehuda Bauer's thesis.
1
The term "Gypsy" is used throughout this work and refers to both Sinti and Roma without distinction. It is, by no means, used
as a pejorative. Occasionally terms as "Romani", "Roma", "Roma People" are used interchangeably with "Gypsy".
2
The term "Porrajmos" (meaning "devouring") was introduced by the controversial Roma scholar and activist Ian Hancock at
the beginning of the 1990s to be used for the Gypsy experience during the Nazi era. Hancock himself did not invent this word.
It was suggested to him at a conference in Rumanian Snagov in 1993 by an unknown Kalderash Romani. (Hancock, 2005)
Rarely the word "Samudaripen" meaning "murder of all" has been used as well.
2
1 Persecution of the Gypsies
1.1 Romani before 1933
Practically ever since their migration to Europe in the 13
th
century, the Gypsies had faced number of
prejudices. "Their appearance, language, customs, and itinerant way of life"
3
made them quite distinct
from the majority of the society. Perceived stereotypically in negative terms as vagabonds, asocials,
criminals or fortune tellers, they were often discriminated against. During the Wilhelmian and the
Weimar Republic periods a number of German states, such as Baden, Bavaria and Prussia introduced
discriminatory legislation aimed at controlling and regulating the Gypsy way of life.
4
Although there was widespread discrimination against Gypsies prior to Hitler's ascendance to power, it
had never reached the proportion it was about to reach under the Nazi domination.
1.2 The Gypsies under the Nazi
Herrschaft
1.2.1 First discriminatory measures
The ascendance of Hitler and his party to power meant tighter regulations and ordinances in many
spheres of life and increasing
Gleichschalltung
of the population. By these, the German Gypsy
population of about 26,000
5
(about 0.05 percent of the German population) was affected as any other
part of German population. In a number of these measures the Gypsies were included on the basis
of their behaviour - in one group with beggars, asocials or the
Jenische
, the so-called white Gypsies
(Germans behaving as Gypsies). Soon, however, the Gypsies were targeted for their ethnic or racial
affiliation only.
Although some of the laws did not specifically target the Gypsies, they were used against them
nevertheless. Moreover, a number of measures were derived from legislation used against the Jews.
Thus, for example although aimed primarily against
Ostjuden
- the Denaturalization Law of 14 July
1933 and the Expulsion Law of 23 March 1934 were used for removing stateless and foreign Gypsies
from Germany. The April 1933 Law to Prevent Genetically Deficient Offspring, used for the most part
against handicapped, affected the Gypsy population as well. It is estimated that some 500 Gypsies
6
were sterilized before the outbreak of the war in accordance with this law.
The Nuremberg Laws enacted in 1935 did not specifically mention the Gypsies and only referred to
the Jews.
7
However, their scope was broadened by the first implementing decree of 16 November
1935 and by Frick's decree of 26 November 1935, which among other "polluters of German blood"
named "Gypsies, Negroes and their bastards."
8
Generally speaking, the first years of the Nazi rule in respect to the Gypsies were marked by increased
and intensified persecution, closer surveillance and intentional exclusion from the rest of the society. A
substantial change in Nazi policy occurred in 1936.
3
Burleigh, Wippermann, 1991, 113
4
A rather typical example of this kind of legislation was the Prussian decree of 3 November 1927, which introduced special
identity cards for Gypsies. Every Gypsy above the age of six had to be photographed and fingerprinted. This measure affected
some 8,000 people. (Hancock, 2001, 83)
5
Lewy, 2000, 15
6
Zimmermann, 2001, 423
7
Arad, Y., Gutman, I., Margaliot, A., 1999, 76 - 79
8
Lewy, 2000, 42
3
1.2.2 The "Gypsy problem" as a racial one
In the spring of 1936 the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit (
Rassenhygienische
und Bevölkerungsbiologische Forschungstelle
) was established by the Reich Department of Health as
Department L3. The main aim of this unit was to provide genealogical and racial information on
German Gypsies in order to formulate a new Reich Gypsy Law, thus providing a "scientific" basis and
justification for their treatment.
A former child psychiatrist from Tübingen Dr. Robert Ritter was appointed head of the institution,
which began systematic research in 1937. Gypsies all over Germany were questioned and scrutinized.
The thorough examination focused on both cultural (Romani language knowledge, customs upholding
etc.) and physical characteristics such as "skeleton, physical structure, hair and eye color."
9
Dr. Ritter's
team managed to classify 18,922 of 28,607 German Gypsies. They were divided as follows: 1,079
"pure Gypsies" (Z
10
), 6,992 "more Gypsy than German" (ZM
11
+), 2,976 "half-breeds" (ZM), 2.992
"more German than Gypsy" (ZM-), 2,231 "uncertain" and 2,652 "Germans who behaved as Gypsies".
12
According to Ritter's theory, Gypsies were originally pure Aryan people stemming from India, who,
due to their nomadic life style, encountered a number of other peoples with whom they mixed and
thus polluted and diluted the "Aryan element" of their blood. Only a minority of 5% - 10% "pure
Gypsies" (
Reinrassige
) could be still considered Aryan. The rest was "inferior" and posed a threat to
the purity of the Aryan race.
Gypsy
Mischlinge
were also considered a criminal threat because of their allegedly hereditary
predisposition to crime and asocial behaviour. Since this was supposed to be their innate
characteristic, it was impossible to re-educate them or to influence their behaviour by upbringing.
Ritter saw the only solution to this problem in preventing their reproduction by sterilization.
1.2.3
Zigeunerlager
and concentration camps
Due to the lack of any general Gypsy Law and the often chaotic implementation of national measures
local authorities were left with open possibilities on how to deal with the "Gypsy problem". Often
succumbing to the pressure of local populations, the measures adopted were quite harsh. Thus, a
number of municipal
Zigeunerlager
was established between 1933 and 1939, the biggest being
created in Cologne, Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt and Hamburg
13
. The most infamous of these camps
was set up on an "insalubrious wasteland near a sewage dump and a cemetery"
14
at Berlin-Marzahn
just before the Olympics of 1936. These camps severely limited Gypsy movement and put them under
constant police supervision. After the outbreak of the war they were used for systematic deportations
into concentration camps.
It was not only
Zigeunerlager
the Gypsies were confined to, but concentration camps as well. First
group of several Gypsies was brought to the Worms-Osthofen concentration camp as early as 1933.
Larger numbers of Gypsies were arrested and detained in concentration camps after 1936.
15
In the
raids between 13
th
and 18
th
June 1938 up to that point the highest number of Gypsies (approximately
9
Margalit, 2000, 199
10
Zigeuner
a Gypsy - was considered a person with at least three purely Gypsy grandparents. (Bauer, 1998, 443)
11
Zigeunermischling
12
Bauer, 2001, 61
13
Milton, 1994, 175
14
Burleigh, Wippermann, 1991, 117
15
Gypsies living in Austria after the
Anschluss
and Gypsies living in the Protectorate after the occupation of 1939 received
similar treatment. All decrees valid for German Gypsies were applied to them as well. Moreover, some 3,000 Gypsies from the
Ostmark
were sent to concentration camps Dachau and Ravensbrück in the second half of 1938. In the Protectorate of Bohemia
and Moravia two penal labour camps for Gypsies operated, in Lety and in Hodonin.
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