Gypsies

Gypsies
   The Gypsies, or Roma, entered Europe during the Middle Ages from Northern India. The fact that the Roma had migrated to Europe from the ostensible home of the “Aryan race” did not prevent the Nazis from portraying them as an inferior people because of their lack of roots. Having chosen a nomadic existence, Gypsies by the 15th century were no longer a homogeneous people but divided between the Sinti and Lalleri tribes. Although most of the Roma resided in Eastern Europe and Russia, the Roma were also scattered throughout the rest of Europe. In German-occupied Europe, Nazi ideology characterized the Gypsies as parasites who lived off the host nations that allowed them to reside within their borders.
   Consequently, when the opportunity presented itself, the Germans attempted to purge the Gypsies from the territories under their control. For the most part, the Germans had assistance in this objective, inasmuch as most Europeans were suspicious of the Gypsies, believing them to be idolatrous, if not practitioners of witchcraft. Only in the Balkan states was there some toleration for the Roma as their stereotype as thieves and kidnappers of little children spread throughout the rest of Europe. In both Germany and Austria, numerous laws limited their movements and rights. Although population data on the Gypsies is difficult to assess, many scholars estimate that about 1.5 million Roma lived in Europe on the eve of World War II. The Nazi persecution of the Roma mirrored that of the Jews. In September 1933, Gypsies were arrested throughout Germany in accordance with the Law against Habitual Criminals. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which defined the status of the Jews in Germany, also included regulations regarding the Gypsies. For example, marriages between Gypsies and Germans were forbidden. The Reich Research Office for Race Hygiene and Population declared that 90 percent of the approximately 28,000 German Roma were Mischlinges and therefore non-Aryans. Gypsies were designated as “asocials” and a threat to public health.
   Accordingly, most of the Reich’s Gypsies were sent to Dachau, where many underwent forced sterilization. During the summer of 1938, the government proclaimed “Gypsy Clean-Up Week,” whereby hundreds of Gypsies in Germany and Austria were rounded up, beaten, and imprisoned. Germany, however, was not alone in its response to the presence of Gypsies. The following are representative examples of the treatment of Gypsies in Europe during World War II.
   In Bulgaria in early 1941, King Boris put into force the Law for the Protection of the Nation, which was modeled after the German Nuremberg Laws of 1935. Although the Roma were not mentioned specifically in the law, the Nazi-inspired legislation placed the Gypsies in the same racially inferior category as the Jews. Subsequent legislation outlawed marriages between the Roma and Bulgarians. In 1943, when King Boris agreed to surrender the Jews of Macedonia and Thrace for deportation to the death camps, the Gypsies, themselves fearful of similar treatment, tried to help the Jews. In 1943, when the Bulgarians refused to cooperate with the Germans in the deportation of native Bulgarian Jews, the same rejection was applied to the Gypsies. The Roma also benefited from subsequent legislation that eased anti-Jewish measures in Bulgaria. Gypsies credited King Boris with saving Gypsies who were Bulgarian citizens from the death camps, although the Germans had pressed for the deportation of the Roma, as they had in the matter of the Jews.
   Following the German dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1939, the Czech Gypsies fled to rump Slovakia and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The estimate is that between 60,000 and 100,000 Roma were able to survive the war in the more tolerant atmosphere of Slovakia, although Gypsies were randomly killed by roving bands of Slovakian Nazis. Nevertheless, the government refused to hand over the Gypsies to the Germans for the purpose of deporting them to the death camps. Germany realized that exerting pressure on Father Josef Tiso would jeopardize the important contribution Slovakia was making to the German war effort. In the protectorate, however, the status of the Gypsies mirrored that of the Jews. Between August 1942 and April 1943, 7,980 Gypsies were sent to forced labor camps, and thousands of others were deported to Auschwitz beginning in March 1943, and continuing through late 1944. The majority of the 6,000 to 8,000 Czech Gypsies who died in the Porajmos (Gypsy Holocaust) met their fate in Auschwitz.
   Hungary’s decision to join Germany in the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 brought an increase in German pressure for Hungary to deal with its Jewish and Gypsy populations. According to the 1941 census figures, there were 57,372 Roma (as defined by language) and 76,209 Roma by nationality in Hungary. The Arrow Cross slogan “After the Jews the Gypsies” led to the deportation of Hungarian Gypsies to Auschwitz beginning in March 1943. Because German officials in Hungary were preoccupied with the roundup of the Jews, they did not begin to deal with the Gypsies in earnest until the fall of 1944. Approximately 28,000 Roma were deported from Hungary to Auschwitz, and only 3,000 survived the war. Specialists estimate that 32,000 Hungarian Gypsies died during the Porajmos. In Romania, followers of Ion Antonescu declared that the Gypsy question was as important as the Jewish one. They denied that the Gypsies were part of the Romanian nation and bemoaned the fact that because of mixed marriages there were about 600,000 “half-castes” in the country. To protect Romania from the Gypsies, one newspaper called for the Roma to be eliminated from any part of the civic life of the state, and this was subsequently accomplished when they were placed in labor camps. Under Ion Antonescu, tens of thousands of defenseless Gypsies were deported to Transnistria, where more than half of them died from typhus. Approximately 36,000 Gypsies fell victim to Antonescu’s anti-Gypsy policy.
   Following the start of World War II, the removal of more than 30,000 Gypsies from Germany became a priority for Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) bureau. In the fall of 1941, Austrian Gypsies were sent to the Lodz ghetto, where they were segregated from the Jewish population. The great bulk of the Lodz Gypsies were eventually sent to the Chelmno extermination camp, where all of them perished. Unlike the Jews, the Nazis made distinctions among the Gypsy population. Although the bulk of the Gypsies in both Germany and Austria were considered non-Aryan, there were Roma whom the Nazis classified as “pure” Gypsies. In October 1942, Heinrich Himmler issued a decree that distinguished between Mischlinge Gypsies and those considered of pure blood. Ultimately Himmler’s order exempted some 13,000 Sinti and 1,017 Lalleri from the fate that awaited the great majority of Gypsies. In December 1942, Himmler ordered the Final Solution of the Gypsy problem, whereby most Gypsies were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were exterminated. Exceptions to the deportations were made for the “socially adapted” Roma, former Wehrmacht soldiers, and those necessary for wartime labor.
   The first transport of Gypsies from Germany and Austria arrived in Auschwitz in February 1943. They suffered extreme hardships, and many died of starvation and disease. Others were used in medical experiments, such as those performed by Dr. Josef Mengele, and the rest gassed. According to historian Yehuda Bauer, the total number of Gypsies from the Reich deported to Auschwitz was about 13,000. He also calculated that about 14,000 Sinti and Lalleri, defined by Himmler as pure Gypsies, were spared. The total number of Gypsies killed in the Porajmos is difficult to determine, but Bauer estimated the figure as more than 200,000.

Historical dictionary of the Holocaust. . 2014.

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