Editing Romani Holocaust (section)

== History ==
{{main|History of the Romani people}}

=== Anti-Romani discrimination before 1933 ===
{{main|Anti-Romani sentiment}}

==== Emergence of scientific racism ====
In the late 19th century, the emergence of [[scientific racism]] and [[Social Darwinism]], linking social differences with racial differences, provided the German public with pseudoscientific justifications for [[prejudice]]s [[Antisemitism|against Jews]] and [[Anti-Romani sentiment|Roma]]. During this period, "the concept of [[Race (human categorization)|race]] was systematically employed in order to explain social phenomena." Proponents of this approach attempted to validate the belief that races were not variations of a single species of man because they had distinctly different biological origins. Proponents of this approach established a purportedly scientifically based [[racial hierarchy]], which they believed defined certain minority groups as the [[Other (philosophy)|other]] on the basis of biology.{{sfn|Heuss|1997|p=19}}

In addition to being a period in which racial pseudoscience was widely promoted, the end of the 19th century was a period of state-sponsored modernization in Germany. Industrial development altered many aspects of society. Most notably, the changes which occurred during this period caused the social norms of work and life to shift. For the Roma, this shift in the social norms of work and life 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."{{sfn|Bársony|Daróczi|2008|p=7}}

==== Persecution by the German Empire and the Weimar Republic ====
The developments of racial pseudoscience and modernization resulted in anti-Romani state interventions, carried out by both the [[German Empire]] and the [[Weimar Republic]]. In 1899, the Imperial Police Headquarters in Munich established the Information Services on Romani by the Security Police. Its purpose was to keep records (identification cards, fingerprints, photographs, etc.) and continuous surveillance on the Roma community. In 1904, Prussia adopted a resolution calling for regulation of Gypsy movement. In 1911, the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior organized a conference in Munich to discuss the "Gypsy problem" and to coordinate efforts against Gypsies.<ref>{{cite book |title=Purging the Empire: Mass Expulsions in Germany, 1871–1914 |last=Fitzpatrick |first=Matthew |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x8HBBQAAQBAJ&dq=bavaria+1911+conference+gypsies&pg=PA195 |pages=195–199 |year=2015 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn= 978-0-19-103852-5}}</ref> Roma in the Weimar Republic were forbidden from entering public swimming pools, parks, and other recreational areas, and depicted throughout Germany and Europe as criminals and spies.<ref name=Symi_Rom-Rymer />

The 1926 "Law for the Fight Against Gypsies, Vagrants and the Workshy" was enforced in Bavaria, and became the national norm by 1929. It stipulated that groups identifying as 'Gypsies' avoid all travel to the region. Those already living in the area were to "be kept under control so that there [was] no longer anything to fear from them with regard to safety in the land."<ref>''Report on the Bavarian Landtag 1925/6,'' III Tagung; Gesetz- und Verordnungsblatt fur den Freistaat Bayern, Nr. 17, 22 July 1926. as cited in {{Harvnb|Heuss|1997|p=24}}.</ref> They were forbidden from "roam[ing] about or camp[ing] in bands", and those "unable to prove regular employment" risked being sent to forced labor for up to two years.
Herbet Heuss notes that "[t]his Bavarian law became the model for other German states and even for neighbouring countries."<ref name=ReferenceA>{{Harvnb|Heuss|1997|p=24}}.</ref>

The demand for Roma to give up their nomadic ways and settle in a specific region was often the focus of anti-Romani policy both in the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. Once settled, communities were concentrated and isolated in a single area of a town or city.{{sfn|Sparing|1997|pp=39–40}} This segregation facilitated state-run surveillance practices and 'crime prevention.'

Following the passage of the Law for the Fight Against Gypsies, Vagrants, and the Workshy, public policy increasingly targeted the Roma on the explicit basis of race. In 1927, Prussia passed a law that required all Roma to carry identity cards. Eight thousand Roma were processed this way and subjected to mandatory fingerprinting and photographing.{{sfn|Hancock|1991|p=14}} Two years later, the focus became more explicit. In 1929, the German state of [[Hessen]] proposed the "Law for the Fight Against the Gypsy Menace". The same year, the Centre for the Fight Against Gypsies in Germany was opened. This body enforced restrictions on travel for undocumented Roma and "allowed for the [[arbitrary arrest and detention]] of gypsies as a means of crime prevention."{{sfn|Jessee|2010|}}

=== Aryan racial purity ===
{{Main|Nazi racial theories|Nazi eugenics|Racial policy of Nazi Germany}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv R 165 Bild-244-71, Dr. Robert Ritter mit alter Frau und Polizist.jpg|thumb|Romani woman with a German police officer and Nazi psychologist [[Robert Ritter]]|381x381px]]
For centuries, Romani tribes had been subject to [[Antiziganism|antiziganist]] persecution and humiliation in Europe.{{sfn|Hancock|2002|}} They were [[social stigma|stigmatized]] as habitual criminals, social misfits, and [[Vagabond (person)|vagabonds]].{{sfn|Hancock|2002|}} When Hitler came to national power in 1933, anti-Gypsy laws in Germany remained in effect. Under the "Law against Dangerous Habitual Criminals" of November 1933, the police arrested many Roma, along with others the Nazis viewed as "asocial"—prostitutes, beggars, homeless vagrants, and alcoholics—and imprisoned them in internment camps.

After Hitler's rise to power, legislation against the Romani was increasingly based upon a rhetoric of racism. Policy originally based on the premise of "fighting crime" was redirected to "fighting a people".<ref name=ReferenceA /> Targeted groups were no longer determined on juridical grounds, but instead, were victims of racialized policy.<ref name=ReferenceA />

The Department of Racial Hygiene and Population Biology began to experiment on Romani to determine criteria for their racial classification.{{sfn|Tyrnauer|1992|p=19}}

The Nazis established the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit (''Rassenhygienische und Bevölkerungsbiologische Forschungsstelle'', Department L3 of the Reich Department of Health) in 1936. Headed by [[Robert Ritter]] and his assistant [[Eva Justin]], this unit was mandated to conduct an in-depth study of the "Gypsy question (''Zigeunerfrage'')" and to provide data required for formulating a new Reich "Gypsy law". After extensive fieldwork in the spring of 1936, consisting of interviews and medical examinations to determine the racial classification of the Roma, the unit decided that most Romani, whom they had concluded were not of "pure Gypsy blood", posed a danger to German racial purity and should be deported or eliminated. No decision was made regarding the remainder (about 10 percent of the total Romani population of Europe), primarily [[Sinti]] and Lalleri tribes living in Germany. Several suggestions were made. ''[[Reichsführer-SS]]'' [[Heinrich Himmler]] suggested deporting the Romani to a remote [[Indian reservation|reservation]], as the United States had done to Native Americans, where "pure Gypsies" could continue their nomadic lifestyle unhindered. According to him:

{{blockquote|The aim of measures taken by the State to defend the homogeneity of the German nation must be the physical separation of Gypsydom from the German nation, the prevention of [[miscegenation]], and finally, the regulation of the way of life of pure and part-Gypsies. The necessary legal foundation can only be created through a Gypsy Law, which prevents further intermingling of blood, and which regulates all the most pressing questions which go together with the existences of Roma in the living space of the German nation.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Burleigh |first1=Michael |last2=Wippermann |first2=Wolfgang |year=1991 |title=The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945 |url=https://archive.org/details/racialstate00mich |url-access=registration |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |page=[https://archive.org/details/racialstate00mich/page/121 121] |isbn=978-0-521-39802-2}}</ref>}}

Himmler took special interest into the "Aryan" origins of the Romani and distinguished between "settled" (assimilated) and "unsettled" Romani. In May 1942 an order was issued according to which all "Gypsies" living in the Balkans were to be arrested.

Although the Nazi regime never produced the "Gypsy Law" desired by Himmler,<ref name=USHMM_1>{{cite web |title=Sinti and Roma: Victims of the Nazi Era |publisher=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] |url=http://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/2000926-Roma-and-Sinti.pdf}}</ref> policies and decrees were passed which discriminated against the Romani people.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=230}} Roma were classified as "asocial" and "criminals" by the Nazi regime.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=229}} From 1933 on, Roma were placed in [[Nazi concentration camps|concentration camps]].<ref>{{Cite book|date=1 January 1972 |title=America's Uncounted People |publisher=[[The National Academies Press]] |doi=10.17226/20212 |isbn=978-0-309-02026-8}}</ref> After 1937, the Nazis started to carry out racial examinations on the Roma living in Germany.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=230}} In 1938, Himmler issued an order regarding the 'Gypsy question' which explicitly mentioned "race" which stated that it was "advisable to deal with the Gypsy question on the basis of race."{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=230}} The decree made it law to register all Roma (including ''Mischlinge'' – mixed race), as well as those people who "travel around in a Gypsy fashion" over the age of six.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=230}} Although the Nazis believed that the Roma had originally been Aryan, over time, the Nazis said, they became mixed-race and so were classified as "non-Aryan" and of an "alien race".{{sfn|Lewy|2000|p=36}}

=== Loss of citizenship ===
{{Main|Nuremberg Laws}}
The Nuremberg race laws passed on 15 September 1935. The first Nuremberg Law, the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor", forbade marriage and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans. The second Nuremberg law, "The Reich Citizenship Law", stripped Jews of their German citizenship. On 26 November 1935, Germany expanded the Nuremberg laws to also apply to the Roma. Romani, like Jews, lost their right to vote on 7 March 1936.<ref name=USHMM_1 />

=== Persecution and genocide ===
[[File:Romani prisoners at Belzec labor camp.jpg|thumb|Romani prisoners at [[Belzec extermination camp]], 1940]]
[[File:Brown triangle.svg|thumb|The Brown Triangle. Romani prisoners in German concentration camps such as [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]] were forced to wear the brown [[Nazi concentration camp badge|inverted triangle on their prison uniforms]] so they could be distinguished from other inmates.<ref>{{cite web |title=Questions: Triangles |url=http://www.holocaust-history.org/questions/triangles.shtml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080914095332/http://www.holocaust-history.org/questions/triangles.shtml |archive-date=14 September 2008 |date=16 May 2000 |website=The Holocaust History Project}}</ref>]]

The Third Reich's government began persecuting the Romani as early as 1936 when they started to transfer the people to municipal internment camps on the outskirts of cities, a prelude to their deportation to concentration camps. A December 1937 decree on "crime prevention" provided the pretext for major roundups of Roma. Nine representatives of the Romani community in Germany were asked to compile lists of "pure-blooded" Romanis to be saved from deportation. However, the Germans often ignored these lists, and some individuals identified on them were still sent to concentration camps.<ref>{{cite book |last=Fein |first=Helen |year=1979 |title=Accounting for Genocide: National Response and Jewish Victimization During the Holocaust |location=New York |publisher=Free Press |pages=140–141 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jv1mAAAAMAAJ |isbn=978-0-02-910220-6}}</ref> Notable internment and concentration camps include [[Dachau concentration camp|Dachau]], Dieselstrasse, [[Berlin-Marzahn concentration camp|Marzahn]] (which evolved from a municipal internment camp) and Vennhausen.

Initially, the Romani were herded into so-called [[ghetto]]s, including the [[Warsaw Ghetto]] (April–June 1942), where they formed a distinct class in relation to the Jews. Ghetto diarist [[Emmanuel Ringelblum]] speculated that Romani were sent to the Warsaw Ghetto because the Germans wanted:<blockquote>...&nbsp;to toss into the Ghetto everything that is characteristically dirty, shabby, bizarre, of which one ought to be frightened, and which anyway has to be destroyed.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%203727.pdf |title=From Ringelblum's Diary: The Encounter Between the Gypsies and the Jews in the Ghetto |website=[[Yad Vashem]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230727015531/https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%203727.pdf |archive-date=27 July 2023}}</ref></blockquote>

Initially, there was disagreement within the Nazi circles about how to solve the "Gypsy Question". In late 1939 and early 1940, [[Hans Frank]], the General Governor of occupied Poland, refused to accept the 30,000 German and Austrian Roma which were to be deported to his territory. Heinrich Himmler "lobbied to save a handful of pure-blooded Roma", whom he believed to be an ancient Aryan people for his "ethnic reservation", but was opposed by [[Martin Bormann]], who favored deportation for all Roma.<ref name=Symi_Rom-Rymer /> The debate ended in 1942 when Himmler signed the order to begin the mass deportations of Roma to Auschwitz concentration camp. During [[Operation Reinhard]] (1941–1943), an undetermined number of Roma were killed in the extermination camps, such as [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Arad |first=Yitzhak |author-link=Yitzhak Arad |year=1999 |title=Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps |pages=[https://archive.org/details/belzecsobibortre00yitz/page/152 152]–153 |publisher=[[Indiana University Press]] |isbn=978-0-253-21305-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/belzecsobibortre00yitz |url-access=registration |quote=operation reinhard gypsies.}}</ref>

[[File:Bundesarchiv R 165 Bild-244-52, Asperg, Deportation von Sinti und Roma.jpg|thumb|German troops round up Romani in [[Asperg]], Germany, in May 1940]]
The Nazi persecution of Roma was not regionally consistent. In France, between 3,000 and 6,000 Roma were deported to German concentration camps as Dachau, Ravensbrück, Buchenwald, and other camps.<ref name=Symi_Rom-Rymer />{{page needed|date=February 2023}} Further east, in the Balkan states and the Soviet Union, the [[Einsatzgruppen]], mobile killing squads, travelled from village to village massacring the inhabitants where they lived and typically leaving few to no records of the number of Roma killed in this way. In a few cases, significant documentary evidence of mass murder was generated.<ref>{{cite book |last=Headland |first=Ronald |year=1992 |title=Messages of Murder: A Study of the Reports of the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the Security Service, 1941–1943 |publisher=[[Fairleigh Dickinson University Press]] |page=63 |isbn= 978-0-8386-3418-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mue8a5Rwyi0C&q=824&pg=PA63 |access-date=17 February 2010}}</ref> [[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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Snyder |first=Timothy |year=2010 |title=Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin |publisher=[[Basic Books]] |page=276 |isbn=978-0-465-00239-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n856VkLmF34C&q=timothy+snyder+bloodlands+roma&pg=PA276 |access-date=30 June 2011}}</ref>

In return for immunity from prosecution for [[German war crimes|war crimes]], [[Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski]] stated at the [[Einsatzgruppen Trial]] that "the principal task of the Einsatzgruppen of the [[Sicherheitsdienst|S.D.]] was the annihilation of the Jews, Gypsies, and [[Political commissar]]s".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-04/tgmwc-04-28-06.shtml |title=The Trial of German Major War Criminals Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany 7th January to 19th January, 1946 |year=2009 |publisher=[[The Nizkor Project]] |access-date=17 February 2010 |archive-date=10 June 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070610224314/http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-04/tgmwc-04-28-06.shtml |url-status=dead }}</ref> Roma in the [[Slovak Republic (1939–1945)|Slovak Republic]] were killed by local collaborating auxiliaries.<ref name=Symi_Rom-Rymer /> Notably, in Denmark and Greece, local populations did not participate in the hunt for Roma as they did elsewhere.<ref name="www1.yadvashem.org">{{cite web |title=Gypsies |publisher=Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies |url=http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%206324.pdf |access-date=8 March 2015}}</ref><ref>Ian Hancock said there was no record of any Roma killed in Denmark or Greece. Source: {{cite book |last1=Edelheit |first1=Abraham J. |last2=Edelheit |first2=Hershel |year=1995 |title=The History of the Holocaust: A Handbook and Dictionary |publisher=Westview |page=458 |isbn= 978-0-8133-2240-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ilnACY97x4kC}}</ref> Bulgaria and Finland, although allies of Germany, did not cooperate with the Porajmos, just as they did not cooperate with the anti-Jewish ''[[Shoah]]''.

[[File:SettelaSteinbach.jpg|thumb|An image of 10-year-old [[Settela Steinbach]], a Dutch Romani girl on a train to Auschwitz in 1944, became an icon of children in the Holocaust.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Benevento |first1=Gina |title=Remembering the Roma victims of the Holocaust |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2017/8/2/remembering-the-roma-victims-of-the-holocaust |work=[[Al Jazeera Arabic|Al Jazeera]] |quote=For decades Settela's face was an icon of children in the Holocaust. Her name unknown, she was simply called 'the girl with the headdress'. |publisher=Al Jazeera Media Network |date=2 August 2017 }}</ref>]]
On 16 December 1942, Himmler ordered that the Romani candidates for extermination should be transferred from ghettos to the extermination facilities of [[Auschwitz concentration camp#Auschwitz II-Birkenau|Auschwitz-Birkenau]]. On 15 November 1943, Himmler ordered that Romani and "part-Romanies" were to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps".{{sfn|Gilbert|2004|p=474}} The camp authorities housed Roma in a special compound that was called the "[[Gypsy family camp (Auschwitz)|Gypsy family camp]]". Some 23,000 Roma, Sinti, and Lalleri were deported to Auschwitz altogether.<ref name=USHMM_2 /> In concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Roma wore brown or black triangular patches, the symbol for "asocials", or green ones, the symbol for professional criminals, and less frequently the letter "Z" (meaning ''Zigeuner'', German word for gypsy).

[[Sybil Milton]], a scholar of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust,<ref>{{cite news |author-link=William H. Honan |last=Honan |first=William H. |date=24 October 2000 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/24/world/sybil-milton-59-scholar-of-nazis-and-holocaust.html |title=Sybil Milton, 59, Scholar of Nazis and Holocaust |work=[[The New York Times]] }}</ref> has speculated that Hitler was involved in the decision to deport all Romani to Auschwitz, as Himmler gave the order six days after meeting with Hitler. For that meeting, Himmler had prepared a report on the subject ''Führer: Aufstellung wer sind Zigeuner''.{{sfn|Milton|2009|p=172}} 

On some occasions, the Roma attempted to resist the Nazis' extermination. In May 1944 at Auschwitz, SS guards tried to liquidate the Gypsy family camp and were "met with unexpected resistance". When ordered to come out, they refused, having been warned and arming themselves with crude weapons: iron pipes, shovels and other tools. The SS chose not to confront the Roma directly and withdrew for several months. After transferring as many as 3,000 Roma who were capable of forced labor to Auschwitz I and other concentration camps, the SS moved against the remaining 2,898 inmates on 2 August. The SS murdered nearly all of the remaining inmates, most of them ill, elderly men, women and children, in the gas chambers of Birkenau. At least 19,000 of the 23,000 Roma sent to Auschwitz were murdered there.<ref name="Symi_Rom-Rymer" />

The [[Society for Threatened Peoples]] estimates the Romani deaths at 277,100.<ref>{{cite book |last=Verdorfer |first=Martha |year=1995 |title=Unbekanntes Volk: Sinti und Roma |trans-title=Unknown people: Sinti and Roma |publisher=Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (Society for Threatened Peoples) |language=de |url=http://www.gfbv.it/3dossier/sinti-rom/de/rom-de.html#r5 |access-date=8 March 2015 }}</ref> [[Martin Gilbert]] estimates that a total of more than 220,000 of the 700,000 Romani in Europe were murdered, including 15,000 (mainly from the Soviet Union) at Mauthausen in January–May 1945.{{sfn|Gilbert|2002|loc=Map 182 p. 141 (with deaths by country); Map 301 p. 232}} The [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] cites scholars who estimate the number of Sinti and Roma murdered as between 220,000 and 500,000.<ref name=USHMM_1 /> Sybil Milton estimated the number of lives lost as "something between a half-million and a million-and-a-half".<ref name=Milton_estimates />{{sfn|Hancock|2002|p=48}}