The Gypsies are a people who have been living in Europe since the 15th century, bound by a common language, culture, and, until the 20th century, by a nomadic way of life. Also called Roma, they were among the groups singled out for persecution by the Nazi regime
Persecution in Modern Times.
With the advent of modern industrial society, the Gypsies were out of place in the eyes of the authorities. In 1899, Bavaria established a special office for "Gypsy affairs," which was to be the center for anti-Gypsy policies in Germany until the Nazi period. In February 1929, the Munich office became a Central Bureau, with close ties to a similar office in Vienna. In 1929, regulations came into effect that enabled the police to coerce Gypsies, who had no permanent occupation, to work at forced labor. Similar regulations were in force in a number of other European countries.
Nazi Persecution.
During the Nazi period, their policies towards the Gypsies were not uniform. In the Reich, the Nazis murdered those whom they saw as Mischlinge; the "pure" Gypsies were mostly spared. In the rest of Europe, they did not have a very clear policy, except that wherever they found wandering clans of Gypsies they murdered them - as "asocials." The fate of the Gypsies was in line with Nazi thought on the whole: Gypsies were not Jews, therefore there was no need to murder all of them. Those Gypsies who were of "pure blood," or considered not dangerous on a racial level, could continue to exist under strict supervision. The Mischlinge were, as a matter of course, doomed to death. The difference between the fate of the Gypsies and the Jews is very clear. The Jews were slated for total annihilation, whereas the Gypsies were sentenced to selective mass murder on a vast scale. Even today the Gypsies are a persecuted minority, and research on their history in the Nazi period remains quite sketchy.
GYPSIES FROM THE REICH, DURING THE NAZI PERIOD
The Nazi View of the Gypsies.
Gypsies were among the groups singled out for persecution by the Nazi regime. There were about 37,000 Gypsies in Germany and Austria, and about 13,000 in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Most of those in Germany and Austria belonged to the Sinti and Lalleri tribes. The basic attitude of the Nazi regime combined old prejudices and animosities, set against an ideal of "pure" Nordic society with an emphasis on peasant life and sedentary habits. This stood in clear contradiction to the Gypsy way of life. In the eyes of the Nazis, the Gypsies were "asocials," who did not fit into the kind of society the Nazis were going to build. Despite the Aryan parentage of the closely knit Gypsy families, they were considered "people of different blood" (Andersbluetige).
Discrimination by Law.
The Nuremberg Laws of September 1935 included the Gypsies, along with the Jews. In 1936, groups of Gypsies were delivered to the Dachau camp as "asocials," and a racist ideologue, Dr. Robert Ritter, examined the Gypsy population from the Nazi point of view and proposed solutions as to what to do with them.
Gypsy Mischlinge.
According to Dr. Ritter, over 90 percent were to be considered Mischlinge. This solved the problem of having to deal with an Aryan minority - the Nazis simply denied they were Aryans. Ritter's proposals were to prevent Gypsies from mixing with people of "German blood," to separate "pure" Gypsies from Mischlinge Gypsies and to perform sterilizations on the latter, while putting them in forced-labor camps. Both "pure" and Mischlinge Gypsies were considered "asocial" - work-shy individuals and aliens. On March 1, 1939, Heinrich Himmler called for the separation between Gypsies and Germans, and between "pure" and Mischlinge Gypsies. Both categories would be regulated by the police.
The Outbreak of War and the Radicalization of Anti-Gypsy Policy.
Contrary to this provision, but in line with the general radicalization of Nazi racial policies, the fate of German Gypsies became tied up with that of the Poles and Jews after the Nazi conquest of Poland. In September 1939, Reinhard Heydrich projected the removal of 30,000 Gypsies from all of Germany to the Generalgouvernement, together with the removal of Poles and Jews from the newly occupied west Polish territories. However, plans went askew: In April 1940, the Nazi governor of the Generalgouvernement, Hans Frank, received only 2,500 Gypsies who were removed from the western territories.
Gypsies in the Extermination Camps.
The first large transport of Gypsies arrived in Auschwitz on 26 February, 1943, and a Gypsy family camp was established in Birkenau, with about 20,000. Existing in the most indescribable conditions, a great many of them died from starvation, epidemics, and medical experiments. On 2 August, 1944, 2,897 Gypsies were gassed, including practically all the women and children. Most of the men were taken for forced labor in camps or for the armed forces. The total number of German and Austrian Gypsies deported to Auschwitz was 13,000; 2,500 others were deported to Poland in 1939 and 1940, and mostly killed later; 3,000 were interned in Austrian camps, and presumably mostly killed; and 5,000 were sent to Lodz to be gassed at Chelmno. Apparently some 13,500, defined by Himmler as pure or nearly pure Gypsies, were spared.
GYPSIES FROM OUTSIDE THE REICH, DURING THE NAZI PERIOD
Information as to the fate of the Gypsies outside the boundaries of the Third Reich is sketchy. According to one researcher, Tilman Zulch, more than 200,000 were killed all over Europe. This, however, may be an underestimate. In Yugoslavia alone, some 90,000 Gypsies were murdered together with the Jews by the Ustasa. In the occupied areas of Europe, the Nazis generally interned Gypsies and later transported them to Germany or Poland for use as workers or to be killed. Apparently Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, and Greece were the only countries where the Gypsies escaped this treatment. In the Netherlands, like the Jews, Gypsies were interned in Westerbork and from there sent to Auschwitz. Gypsies from Luxembourg and Belgium were also sent to the notorious extermination camp.
Gypsies under French Control.
Before the Nazi occupation, French authorities had already restricted the movement of Gypsies. Shortly before Christmas 1941, they were deported. In unoccupied France, 30,000 Gypsies were interned and were supervised by Xavier Vallat and the Ministry for Jewish Affairs. Later, most were sent to camps in Germany, where 16,000-18,000 perished. In Algeria, as well, 700 Gypsies were interned.
Gypsies under Italian Control.
In Italy, before the war, the authorities rounded up Gypsies and put them on islands off the mainland. Later, Gypsies from the Three Venices area were sent to Germany for forced labor or to extermination camps. Gypsies who managed to escape the Ustasa massacres in Croatia were sheltered by the authorities in the Italian zone of Yugoslavia. In the fall of 1943, when the Germans took over territories that the Italians had held there, and in Albania, they interned Gypsies and sent some to concentration camps.
Gypsies under Hungarian Control.
Although the Hungarians planned to intern Gypsies in labor camps as early as February 1941, the policy was never fully implemented. After the Arrow Cross party coup in October 1944, persecution of Gypsies in Hungary began in earnest. Germans and Hungarian collaborators rounded up Gypsies, deporting some together with Hungarian Jews. Reputedly, some 31,000 Gypsies were deported within a few months and only some of them returned. The sources for these figures, however, are not clear.
Gypsies under Romanian Control.
The large Romanian Gypsy population was not exposed to an outright extermination policy. In 1941-1942, about 25,000 Gypsies from the Bucharest area were sent to Transnistria, where thousands died.
Gypsies in Slovakia.
Slovak Gypsies, on 18 January, 1940, were drafted into labor brigades along with young Jewish men. Orders issued in 1941 to expel them from their quarters in most towns and villages were carried out unevenly. Slovak fascists, however, murdered hundrof Gypsies in pogrom-like rampages.
Gypsies in Poland.
Most Gypsies in Poland also faced deportation to concentration and extermination camps. Beginning in September 1944, the majority of those remaining in the ghettos were killed. About 25,000 persons, some two-thirds of the Polish Gypsies, died during the Nazi occupation.
Gypsies in the Soviet Union.
In the Baltic States and the Soviet Union, Gypsies were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen. Apparently, Gypsies were murdered along with Jews at Babi Yar near Kiev. In May 1943, Alfred Rosenberg, the minister for the Eastern Occupied Territories, proposed that the Gypsies be concentrated in special camps and settlements. All were not, however, to "be treated as Jews." Heinrich Himmler, in his order of 15 November, 1943, said: "1) Sedentary Gypsies and part-Gypsies are to be treated as citizens of the country. 2) Nomadic Gypsies and part-Gypsies are to be placed on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps." The distinction between sedentary Gypsies and nomadic Gypsies was applied only in the Baltic States and the Soviet Union. Some sedentary Gypsies in the latter were drafted into labor brigades or sent to concentration camps.
