Sinti & Roma Genocide

Sinti & Roma Genocide

(Roma and Sinti Families in the Belzec Death Camp, German-occupied Poland, not realizing that they will soon be gassed.)

Today (August 2nd) is International Day of Remembrance of the Genocide of the Roma and Sinti.

The Germans and their Allied murdered 1.5 Million Roma and Sinti (often called Gypsies) throughout German-Occupied Europe during World War 2.

The Roma and Sinti lost their German Citizenships (along with the Jews) when the Nuremberg Race Laws were passed in 1935.

A total of 23,000 Roma and Sinti were deported to the Auschwitz Death Camp in German-Occupied Poland and imprisoned there in the “Gypsy Family Camp” (German: Zigeunerfamilienlager) starting in February 1943.

Unlike the other Prisoners of Auschwitz (except the Czechoslovak Jews in the Theresienstadt Family Camp - German: Theresienstädter Familienlager - who were kept at Auschwitz so the Swiss Red Cross could visit them at the Death Camp the same way they had visited them at the Theresienstadt Ghetto in German-Occupied Czechoslovakia) the Roma and Sinti were allowed to keep their Hair, wear Civilian Clothes and kept away from the other Prisoners.

At the end of July 1944, all healthy Roma and Sinti Prisoners (3,000 of them) were shipped from Auschwitz to different German Concentration Camps to do Forced Labor.

On the night of August 2nd-3rd, 1944, all the remaining Roma and Sinti Prisoners at the Gypsy Camp in Auschwitz (mostly the Elderly, the Disabled, Women and Children) were sent to the Gas Chambers and murdered.

5,600 Roma and Sinti Men, Women and Children died that night.

Of the 23,000 Roma and Sinti deported to Auschwitz: 3,000 were sent to other Concentration Camps, 13,600 succumbed to planned Malnutrition, Diseases and Epidemics and 5,600 were Gassed to Death.

In total 1.2 Million Roma and Sinti Men, Women and Children were murdered during the War.

After the War (from 1945 to 1979) the West German Government did not recognize the Roma and Sinti as Nazi Victims and so didn’t give them any Reparations.

In 1979 the West German Supreme Court finally acknowledged that the Nazis had persecuted and murdered the Roma and Sinti due to the Race and so West Germany started giving the Victims Reparations.

The East German Government (along with the Communist Governments of: the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Albania, Yugoslavia and Romania) never recognized the Roma and Sinti as Nazi Victims.

In fact, from 1945 until the 1990s, the Communist Governments Imprisoned and Forcibly Sterilized the Roma and Sinti.

After Germany reunited in 1990 the German Government continued and continued to this day to give Reparations to the Roma and Sinti Victims.

Today, the Roma and Sinti continue to be openly discriminated against and attacked throughout Europe.

A 2019 Poll found: 83% of Italians, 76% of Slovaks, 72% of Greeks, 68% of Bulgarians, 66% of Czechs, 61% of Lithuanians, 61% of Hungarians, 52% of Russians, 51% of Poles, 44% of French, 40% of Spaniards and 37% of Germans

Do not like or trust the Roma and Sinti People and believe they should be kept separate from the rest of the Population.