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The Roma and the Holocaust of World War II: Victims, Then and Now
By Julia Hajdu

            My initial interest in Roma topics began with a course in minority rights at a university in Hungary.  We discussed issues of origin, education, culture and their place in the eyes of the white Hungarian majority.  As a child, growing up in a Hungarian family, the word Roma existed only as the name of a city in central Italy.  The peoples collectively known as Roma were known in my household as gypsies.  They were dirty, they were criminals, and they were not to be associated with in any way, shape, or form.  They were bad from birth.  Stories of young gypsies who would corner you in broad daylight to steal your money and your coat are common among children, whether or not they were true, and were not forgotten by adulthood.  The majority wanted to assimilate them somehow into their culture, but did not want them as their own neighbors.  Tension grew, questions arose, yet nobody knew how to deal with the ‘problem’ of these gypsies.  In World War II, Hitler and his army of Nazis found a solution to the ‘problem’, which resembled very much the solution to the Jewish ‘problem’. 

            The Jewish problem was to be solved by forcing Jews to wear yellow stars on all clothing, then herding them into ghettos, and finally moving them to concentration camps, where they were killed immediately or worked to death.  The Nazis felt this solution to be the only way of saving the Aryan race from being tainted by Jewish blood.  Roma were also forced to wear symbols on their clothing, then moved into the newly evacuated ghettos from where they were taken into concentration camps and either killed or worked to death.  Jews were defined as anyone who: a) descended from 3-4 Jewish grandparents; b) had 2 Jewish grandparents and who belonged to the Jewish religion or married a Jew according to the Nuremberg Laws; c) to the first degree a mixed Jew who had 2 Jewish grandparents but was not religious or married to a Jew; and, d) to the second degree a mixed Jew who had 1 Jewish grandparent.[1]  The definition of a Gypsy was just as strict before 1938.  After 1938, however, a person could be considered having too much Gypsy blood in them if two of their eight great-grandparents were even part-Roma.[2]  However, anyone who traveled as a Gypsy or had darker skin resembling a Gypsy was considered to have Gypsy blood. 

            This is just the beginning of the similarities between the Roma and Jewish experience in the Holocaust of World War II.  Of course, no claim can be made that their experiences were the same, but similarities can often be found.  Arguments among scholars about the uniqueness of the Holocaust are widespread, ranging from those who feel the Holocaust was specifically Jewish, to those who feel that all victims equally played a part.  In this paper, I will first introduce some quotes from certain scholars who feel that Roma should not be recognized equally with Jews as victims of the Holocaust.  I would then like to look at the experience of Roma in the Holocaust, beginning with laws and decrees passed against them, and ending with their struggle for recognition today.  Hopefully, this will end in a basic understanding of what role the Holocaust had for Roma and why they, too, were equally victimized during the Holocaust. 

            One of the best known Jewish survivors of the Holocaust is Elie Wiesel.  His many books dealing with life in and after the concentration camps are required reading for many high school students.  In 1979, after his appointment to chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, he wrote a report to the president in which he said 

While Gypsies were killed throughout Europe, Nazi plans for their extermination were never completed nor fully implemented.  However, Nazi plans for the annihilation of European Jews were not only completed but thoroughly implemented.[3]

As an authority in the US on the holocaust, it was his responsibility to represent the Holocaust for what it truly was.  You will find that he did not fulfill that responsibility because he focuses only on the importance of the Jewish aspect of the Holocaust.  Other scholars have written similar statements, acknowledging the fact that Roma were victims, but emphasizing that they were not a central focus of the Holocaust.  Gordon McFee writes in his article titled "Are the Jews Central to the Holocaust?"

The holocaust, from its conception to its implementation had a distinctly Jewish aspect to it and, arguably without this Jewish aspect, there would have been no holocaust.  Most of the non-Jewish people would not have been killed because the killing machinery would not have been put into operation....  Others were drawn in -- with horrific results -- but the key object and common thread was always the Jews.

He goes on to say that "[t]he term 'holocaust' was coined to describe the uniquely Jewish aspect of the Final Solution." This is misleading, because it sounds like the word was created specifically to describe the unique Jewishness of the tragedy.  It is also important to note that when capitalized, Holocaust refers specifically to the mass murders perpetrated by Nazis during World War II.  When not capitalized, it can be used to describe any mass slaughter.  Though McFee expects us to assume he is speaking of the Holocaust during World War II, he does not make the distinction between capitalized and non-capitalized holocaust in his quote, thus misleading us.  Guenther Lewy, the author of The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies, argues:

Because there was no intent to kill all Romanies, and because policies against them were not motivated by Nazi race theory, their treatment cannot be compared with that of the Jews and therefore they do not qualify for inclusion in the Holocaust-in sum because their treatment did not constitute a genocide and it was not motivated by a policy based on Nazi race theory.[4]

Ward Churchill quotes Yehuda Bauer, a noted scholar of the Holocaust, as having written "[The] fate of the Gypsies was in line with Nazi thought as a whole; Gypsies were not Jews, and therefore there was no need to kill them all."[5] I ask that you keep all of these quotes in mind as you continue reading.  You will notice some very peculiar commonalities. 

Roma Experience

            Laws against Roma had been passed almost since the day they arrived in Europe.  In the very beginning, rumor spread that they were a band of Christian Egyptians fleeing persecution, thus coining the term Gypsies from the word Egyptians.  However, as a darker skinned people who did not lead the settled lifestyle of peasants already in the area, they were immediately suspect.  In 1721, Austro-Hungarian Emperor Karl VI called for the "first governmental plan to exterminate Romanies".[6]  This only applied to the area which would become Germany.  Other countries, such as Romania, France, and Spain, later pass laws calling for the resettlement and murder of Roma.  "By the nineteenth century, scholars in Germany and elsewhere in Europe were writing about Romanies and Jews as being inferior beings and 'the excrement of humanity'; even Darwin, writing in 1871, singled out [the] two populations [Jews and Gypsies] as not being 'culturally advanced' like other 'territorially settled' peoples."[7]  Here we see that both cultures, as ones without an official homeland, were considered less evolved somehow.  People throughout Europe had become settled into their own towns, intermingling with neighbors and setting up a social order based upon a fixed way of life.  Roma, being a nomadic group, could not fit this way of life.  The differences in religious and cultural practices led to rumors of them being magicians or vampires, which in turn led to their ostracization. 

                        Being culturally unacceptable did not matter to most Roma.  The nomadic Roma lead very different lives from the Europeans of the time and did not care to assimilate themselves into that way of life. They were most comfortable carrying on the practices and the ways of life of their ancestors. However, being economically unaccepted was another matter.  Because people were constantly suspicious of these wandering peoples, they could not form the business relationships which would give them a way of making a living or a trading base.  Often, families would have to steal in order to eat, because nobody would transact with them.  This led to a belief that all Roma were thieves, evolving into their 'criminality' being seen as a transmitted genetic disease which could be passed on from generation to generation and also to people near them.[8]

                        "When the Nazi party came to power in Germany in 1933, they inherited [from past rulers like Karl VI] anti-Roma laws already in effect."[9]  Hitler did not have to create new restrictions on Roma, because they were already in place. Ian Hancock lists many laws passed before Hitler’s rise to power:

During the 1920s, the legal oppression of Romanies in Germany intensified, despite the official statutes of the Weimar Republic that said that all its citizens were equal. In 1920 they were forbidden to enter parks and public baths; in 1925 a conference on  ‘The Gypsy Question’ was held which resulted in the creation of laws requiring unemployed Romanies to be sent to work camps ‘for reasons of public security’, and for all Romanies to be registered with the police.[10] 

It took Hitler only four months after becoming Chancellor to pass a law against Jews, Roma, blacks, homosexuals and others incorporating the phrase ‘lives undeserving of life’.[11] This phrase originally meant only those whose conditions in life were presumed to be hereditary, such as homosexuality, disability, or mental illness. However, with his new appointment as Chancellor, he could mold the laws to fit his own agenda, which included the eradication of anyone non-Aryan or with contrasting political views.  In 1937, both Roma and Jews were officially labeled second-class citizens, "depriving them of [all or any of] their civil rights."[12]  On December 16, 1943 Himmler gave the order to deport all Roma to Auschwitz-Birkenau for extermination.[13]

            Life in concentration camps was not easy for anyone.  Roman Mirga was one of the earliest Roma Holocaust survivors who had his story made into a book.  This was in 1986, more than 40 years after being liberated.  His story gives us the truth about what it was like to be a prisoner at Auschwitz.  One might say he was one of the lucky ones, because his father was a musician favored by the camp authorities.  As the musician's son, he and his family were at least kept alive.  It is important to note that in many concentration camps Roma families were held together.  However, this was not done because Nazi officials felt any kindness toward the families.  Hancock tells us that "König makes it very clear that the 'family camps' were not created out of any humanitarian motive, but because the Roma became completely unmanageable when separated from family members.  It was simply more expedient, and caused the guards less problems, to leave families together for processing."[14] Roman writes about his father playing the violin,

...I suddenly heard music.  In the distance violins were playing 'The Blue Danube'...  It was intended to calm the Jews going inside, soap and towels in their hands, no doubt believing they were taking a bath.  Except that it was not a bath-house, but a crematorium.  The Gypsy orchestra was there...their music helping to make a smooth transition for the Jews from life to death.[15]

I cannot begin to even try to imagine the irony, the sadness, the knowledge that at any moment they themselves may be next.

            Medical experimentation and sterilization were also a large part of the role of Roma in concentration camps.  The best known doctor who led medical experimentation was Dr. Mengele at Auschwitz-Birkenau.  Mengele took a particular interest in Roma children.  He was a very paradoxical figure, because at times he seemed to be especially fond of the Roma children, but then at any given time he would be terribly cruel to them.  Alt and Folts wrote of a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz who described one of Mengele’s procedures in which he had sewn a pair of Roma twins together, “back to back like Siamese twins.”[16] The twins became infected, their wounds oozing pus, until they constantly screamed in agony.  Mengele was also known to kill pairs of twins specifically for the purpose of performing autopsies on their bodies.  Alt and Folts wrote about the recollection of a Roma survivor about “a Gypsy boy who had a long needle stuck into his back for the extraction of spinal fluid.  When the needle broke and the child died, Mengele cut the child open from the neck to the genitals, dissecting the body, and took out the innards to experiment on.”[17]  

Though children particularly interested Mengele, other experiments were also being carried out at the same time, at Auschwitz as well as other concentration camps.  Salt water experiments, in which Roma were either injected with a salt water solution or given nothing more than salt water to drink began in 1944 at Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Dachau.[18] Mustard gas experiments were conducted in early 1944 at Sachsenhausen in which prisoners were injected with an anti-gas solution, and then put into a gas-filled room.  Of the ten subjects, the only two who died were used as a control group and not injected.  One of the injected survivors was then killed and dissected for an autopsy.[19]

Sterilization was also a big part of the medical experimentation practiced on Roma.  “The Nazis wanted the labor of the living generation but were determined to prevent them from reproducing.”[20] Sterilization was often done without the women knowing what was being done to them; most were told they were being given a routine physical examination.  Hungarian Roma survivor Holdosi Vilmosné recounted:

They cut off our hair… and everything to be hairless.  It was done by women, then a doctor examined us thoroughly… they examined, you know, everything.  He was the one who gave an injection to me and to all the others, to everybody.  It hurt badly.  You know, he gave me an injection down there…Everything went black… I fell off that examining table.  They kicked me away, it was time for the next.  They gave me an injection like that one in eight months and after that I did not have that monthly thing.[21]

Sterilization is especially harrowing for Roma.  When I went to Roma settlements and spoke to the men and women, I learned that the more children one has, the higher status he holds among his fellow Roma.  Whether this is true for all Roma everywhere, I cannot be sure; however, every Roma that I had spoken to agreed that children are the community’s pride and joy, and if a woman cannot bear children, she is looked down upon by her neighbors.  Using this assumption, we can understand why sterilization was such a horrible experience especially for young Roma women.  Not only would they not be able to bear a child, which is difficult for anyone to accept, but they would be considered lower than their counterparts who had children, or who could still bear children.  In sterilization we see not only a physical maiming, but also a psychological scarring with social repercussions.

                              In the beginning of their internment, Roma were supposedly allowed to live as long as they could in the camps, dying only from disease and starvation.  We have to note that many Roma never made it to the camps, but were shot right outside of the cities where they lived, or in the forests, or on the way to the camps.  How many Roma were killed before they arrived at camps is impossible to know, mostly because there is no specific documentation about those killings.  Other documentation classified them not as Roma, but as criminals or sometimes even as Jews.  Of those that did make it to the camps, it was not until later in the war when they were being gassed in large numbers.  The first group of Roma to be gassed occurred in January 1940 as an experiment, which was actually the first gassing using Zyklon-B in Nazi history.  Two-hundred and fifty Roma children were used to test the effects of Zyklon-B.  Needless to say, the experiment was successful in that it killed all 250 children, and would be used from then on to gas prisoners.[22] 

            Upon liberation, life for Roma was just as difficult as it was before going into concentration camps.  Some died after liberation because they ate themselves sick.  The food they received in the concentration camps lacked any nutritional value. They were given very little bread, which was often withheld from them as punishment. Survivors’ recollections include them drinking their own urine or licking the condensations off of windowsills in order to quench their thirst.[23]  Because of such extreme malnourishment, Holocaust survivors had to be very careful with how they re-nourished themselves. Using modern day treatment of anorexia patients, who are also severely malnourished, we learn that in order to reduce the chances for heart failure, patients must begin with a calorie count as low as 1,500 calories a day.[24]  However, for many Holocaust survivors even that would have been too much.  Ilona Raffael remembers when the Russians liberated her: “After that we had food, but the Russian dishes were greasy.  Many of us got sick… because people, whose stomach had contracted, ate a lot.  There was an older Romani woman with me who said I should not eat…”[25]  Margit Stojka recalls when the Americans came and liberated them: “They brought a lot of food.  I was clever enough not to eat much food; first I drank a lot of tea.  This way I did not die…”[26]  Some people knew that eating a lot after being hungry for so long would result in disaster.  Unfortunately, those that did not know merely added themselves to the death toll.

            Another terrible situation for Roma upon liberation was their lack of placement.  Unlike other survivors who had families waiting for them in the Americas and throughout Europe, Roma often had no one.  They had no other country to flee to and usually no family outside of their own tribe.  Their caravans had been burned, their horses shot, and all of their belongings confiscated.  Because everything they owned before the war had been carried with them, such as musical instruments, work tools, and their wagons, once they were free they had nothing.  The Roma also did not have foreign organizations to fight for their rights and to help them re-start their lives.  They left the camps empty-handed, with nothing but their weak legs to get them back to their hometowns.  Many were left completely alone, their whole clan having perished in the camps or gas chambers.  But not only did they have nothing material left, they were not welcomed anywhere.

Even after the war many still did not want Roma in their neighborhoods.  Though the new rules supposedly protected Roma and Jews from being hurt, Roma were still seen as criminals by many people.  One Roma survivor, Rudolf Krasznai, remembers that on his way back to Hungary from Berlin, a Jewish woman stopped the group.  He remembers: “At Komárom a Jewish woman requested from the American soldiers to search us.  She was looking for jewelry and money, but she could find nothing because the Germans had taken everything.  We spat on her and told her ‘Aren’t you happy to be alive? How dare you search us?”[27] One who did not go through it cannot comprehend what a slap in the face that must have been, to have just come from a concentration camp, where one was subjugated to virtual torture, then to come out into the world again, only to have your first encounter be with someone who assumes you are a criminal just because of your race.  Hancock quotes a passage from Kenrick which summarizes the situation or Roma after 1945:

In the first years following the end of the Nazi domination of Europe, the Gypsy community was in disarray.  The small [Romani] educational and cultural organizations that had existed before 1939 had been destroyed.  The family structure was broken with the death of the older people – the guardians of the traditions.  While in the camps, the Gypsies had been unable to keep up their customs –the Romanía- concerning the preparation of food and the washing of clothes.  They solved the psychological problems by not speaking about the time in the camps.  Only a small number of Gypsies could read or write, so they could not tell their own story.  But also they were unwilling to tell their own stories to others, and few others were interested anyway.[28]

Hancock also writes that his people, the Roma, “are traditionally not disposed to keeping alive the terrible memories from [their] history…”[29] Agnes Daroczi, a Roma activist in Hungary stated “Ours is an oral culture and there is low contact level among the various Gypsy communities…”[30] We can assume that since Roma have not spoken out about their past, the history could not be written.  This has a lot to do with the fact that the Roma Holocaust, the Porrajmos, has not been heard of until the last two decades.

            Roma are just recently beginning to use their voices in order to call attention to the injustices that were afforded them not only during the war, but for the last 50-60 years.  Ian Hancock, whom I have quoted often in this paper, is one of the leading voices in the push for recognition.  He is a professor at The University of Texas at Austin where he teaches Romani Studies and is director of the International Romani Archives and Documentation Center.  In 1998 President Clinton appointed him to the U.S.  Holocaust Memorial Council where he serves as its sole Roma member.  Romani Rose is the leader of the Central Committee Sinti and Roma Germany who has been fighting for recognition of the Roma Holocaust and for Roma rights in Germany since the seventies.  With the help of these two men, the public is slowly beginning to realize that the Holocaust of World War II had a direct impact on the Roma peoples of Europe.  Web-pages devoted to Roma news and information are being formed, though are still in the developmental phase.  Unfortunately, the general public still sees Roma as the romantic stereotype of wanderer, and the not-so-romantic stereotype of criminal. 

Reparations payments to Roma as a people have been virtually non-existent, often because of the discriminatory views of officials.  Elizabeth Pond mentions a German woman who “was refused reparations because her own ‘serious arrest’ and prison term in Austria in Nazi times were held to disqualify her for compensation.  Yet the ‘serious arrest’ and prison term -- in a Nazi concentration camp -- were precisely what she was seeking compensation for.”[31] The irony in this is obvious: because the Nazis views the Roma race as inherently criminal and drove them into concentration camps, the current public view is also that they were and are criminals, thus not deserving of reparations.  In Germany, once the war was over, and the Compensation Laws of the States were issued in 1949, “most of the prominent German bureaucrats claimed that the Gypsies were not persecuted for racial motives but because of their antisocial and criminal behavior and therefore were not entitled to official recognition as victims of Nazism.”[32] Another official, the mayor of Darmstadt in Germany said that “[The Roma’s] request for recognition insults the honor of the memory of the Holocaust victims by aspiring to be associated with them.”[33] 

This is all very obviously discriminatory because officials are basing their decisions on the belief that all Roma are criminals instead of recognizing that every race has its share of criminals, and should thus be differentiated and analyzed with care.  The situation of the Roma can only be changed once officials recognize that not all Roma are asocial or criminals.  They must look past the stereotype; realize that the Roma people were in fact unfairly imprisoned and victimized during World War II and pass on the reparations which the Roma people deserve.  With the help of people like Romani Rose and Ian Hancock, who fight this fight every day, one day the Roma people will receive the recognition they deserve.  They will be allowed to grieve for the loss of their ancestors who for so long have been ignored. 

The responsibilities of my generation are manifold. Because our grandparents are slowly passing from this world, the vivid memory of the Holocaust might also pass.  Our first responsibility is to listen and document their recollections because they offer the real-life story behind all of the facts and figures culminated by historians.  Recollections by Jewish survivors have been continually produced and published since the end of the war; however, other victims have been quieted.  Some kept the stories to themselves because they could not survive without forgetting the horror.  Others, like the Roma, have been quieted by continual racism throughout their European homelands.  Unless all victims are given a voice, their importance in the shaping of our world will be lost.  Our responsibility, as the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of people who lived through World War II, is to gather and store as much first hand information as possible.

Collecting the information is not enough, however. Our biggest responsibility is to use the information we gather and remember it when we are faced with the challenges of society.  Young Europeans should never forget the horrendous destruction of life which took place on their soil; not for them to feel guilty, but for them to realize that it should never have happened and that it is up to them to protect the present and future from such things.  Unfortunately, there is nothing to protect Roma today from being persecuted. Stereotypes die hard, and the belief that all Roma are criminals still lingers in many minds. It up to my generation to step forward, bring to light the struggles and horrors Roma have had to face and continue to face today. Without the knowledge, no further progress can be made.

My goal with this paper has been to collect information regarding the Porrajmos, the Roma Holocaust, in order to continue educating the world and to show that there were more victims to the Holocaust than are currently discussed.  Roma as a people need to be understood and accepted as having a distinct culture, which is not centered on criminality.  They, too, were victims of the Holocaust.  Like the Jews, the Roma population was decimated by at least two-thirds.  Roma lived through the same humiliation, the same torture, the same hunger, and the list could go on.  Just because Jews have been the most documented victims of the Holocaust does not mean that others did not suffer or that they do not deserve to be recognized alongside Jews at all Holocaust memorials and in all books on the Holocaust.  The new generation of Roma must lift up their voices to educate the world on who they are, on how unlike their stereotype they really are.  They must tell the world what happened to their people almost 60 years ago. When given the recognition they deserve they will be allowed to grieve for the loss of their ancestors and strive for a peaceful future.

Bibliography

Alt, Betty & Silvia Folts. Weeping Violins: The Gypsy Tragedy in Europe, Thomas Jefferson University Press, Missouri. 1996

Bernath, Gabor, ed. Porrajmos: Recollections of Roma Holocaust Survivors. Roma Press Center, Budapest,  2000

Hancock, Ian. We are the Romani People: Ame Sam e Rromane Džene.  University of Hertfordshire Press, Hatfield,   Chapter 4. 2002

Kenrick, Donald & Grattan Puxon. Gypsies Under the Swastika University of Hertfordshire Press, Hatfield, 1995.

Ramati, Alexander.  And the Violins Stopped Playing, Franklin Watts, New York.  1986

Articles from The Patrin Web Journal

Bandy, Alex. “The Forgotten Holocaust” from The Hungary Report 1997 http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/forgotten.htm

Hancock, Ian. “Downplaying the Porrajmos: The Trend to Minimize the Romani Holocaust” 2000 http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/lewy.htm

Hancock, Ian. “Genocide of the Roma in the Holocaust” excerpted from Enyclopedia of Genocide by Israel W. Charny (ed.) 1997 http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/genocide/htm

Lipman, Steve. “The Gypsy ‘Final Solution’” excerpted from The Jewish Week 1997 http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/othervictims2.htm

Margalit, Gilad. “Forty Years for German Recognition of Persecution to Gypsies” excerpted from From “Race Science” to the Camps: The Gypsies during the Second World War, vol.1. 1997 http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/recognition/htm

Miller, Shirley A. “The Road to Porrajmos, the Gypsy Holocaust” 1998 http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/road-to-porrajmos.htm

Novitch, Myriam. “Gypsy Victims of the Nazi Terror” excerpted from the UNESCO Courier http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/terror.htm

Pond Elizabeth. “Romanies: Hitler’s Other Victims” excerpted from The Christian Science Monitor 1980. http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/othervictims.htm  

Tanner, Harold. “The Roma Persecution” 1997 http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/porrajmos.htm

Articles found on other websites

Churchill, Ward. “Assaults on Truth and Memory: Holocaust Denial in Context” (1996) found at http://www.lbbs.org/Zmag/articles/cot96church.htm

Hancock, Ian. “Jewish Responses to the Porrajmos (The Romani Holocaust) found at http://chgs.hispeed.com/Histories__Narratives__Documen/Roma___Sinti__Gypsies_/Jewish_Responses_to_the_Porraj/jewish_responses_to_the_porraj.html

 “Himmler’s Guidelines for the Resettlement of the Gypsies” (1940) found on http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/bibliography/gypsies/guidelines.htm

McFee, Gordon. “Are the Jews Central to the Holocaust?” (2000) found at http://www.holocaust-history.org/jews-central/

Simon, Harvey, ed. “Well Connected” March 1999 http://my.webmd.com/content/article/1680.50415