Editing Romani Holocaust (section)

=== 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}}