The hundreds of thousands of Holocaust victims of Romani origin are not being commemorated much. The Council of Europe and other organizations want this to change, 78 years after the Nazis “cleared” the ‘Gypsy Family Camp’.
Berlin, August 2nd, 2022 (The Berlin Spectator) — A photo of a 9-year-old girl is supposed to look different. She is supposed to play, sing, learn, smile, giggle, enjoy life and have a perspective. On this screenshot taken from a silent film made in May of 1944, Anna Maria Steinbach, also known as ‘Settela’ (see photo above), did not.
‘Clearing’ of Camp
On this photo, Anna Maria has fear in her eyes and she looks undernourished. In the following two months, her situation would not improve, but get a lot worse. On July 31st, 1944, the Nazis murdered her, along with her siblings, her mother and thousands of other Roma. They were gassed.
Who would systematically murder children? Who would murder millions of members of minorities, including half a million people of Romani origin? Nazi Germany did. Seventy-eight years ago, the “clearing” of what they called the ‘Gypsy Family Camp’ in Auschwitz was part of a genocide campaign unparalleled in human history.
Same Gas Chambers
While the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis are being commemorated on a regular basis, in Israel, in the United States of America, in Nazi Germany’s successor state, namely the free and democratic Federal Republic of Germany, and around the world, this can not be said about the Roma who died in the same gas chambers.
Himmler and other Nazi henchmen wanted to “resolve the Gypsy question”. In February of 1943, they started deporting mainly German and Austrian Roma to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, they were shaven, their numbers were tattooed onto their arms, and the last personal things they still had were taken from them.
Horrific Situation
As opposed to the Jews in the other barracks, the Gypsies, women, men and children, were allowed to stay together. Other than that, their situation in Auschwitz was horrific too. Many of the Roma were forced to work, women were raped, and Dr. Mengele performed his disgusting “experiments” on them as well. The hygienic conditions were terrible and they were literally starving with the tiny rations of food and water they got.
In 1944, hundreds of Roma were taken to other parts of the Auschwitz death camp, as well as to other concentration camps. Then, on August 2nd of that year, the ‘Gypsy Family Camp’ was “cleared”. This meant that 4,300 people of Romani origin were murdered, 78 years ago today. The few who had managed to hide were beaten to death or shot on August 3rd.
‘Continued Discrimination’
The events in Auschwitz on August 2nd, 1944, and the murder of Gypsies throughout those terrible times need to be taught at schools more. This is what Romani organizations believe, but also the Council of Europe and the World Jewish Congress (WJC).
For the WJC, its President Ronald Lauder recently said the enduring absence of widespread remembrance of these crimes revealed the continued discrimination against Roma and Sinti in Europe. “This terrible history is frequently overlooked, and Europe’s Roma continue to suffer extensive discrimination and violence across the continent”, Lauder stated in 2020.
Machine Gun Fire
“We must raise our voices against racism, antisemitism, and intolerance of any kind, again and again, whenever and wherever such hatred rears its ugly head”, Lauder said in New York.
According to witnesses who were in Auschwitz 78 years ago, some Roma tried to defend themselves when the Nazis prepared for murdering them. For instance, they had made knives of scrap metal parts since they knew what was coming. The Nazi guards’ answer was machine gun fire.
Injustice and Murder
Thuringia’s First Minister Bodo Ramelow is President of the Bundesrat right now. He was going to take part in a commemoration event at the memorial site in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Ahead of the event, as he was traveling to Poland, he said the injustice and the murder of hundreds of thousands of European Roma and Sinti, which the Nazi terror regime had been responsible for ashamed him. “You can only shape the future when you learn from the past”, Governor Ramelow stated. Romani Rose, the chairman of the Central Council of German Roma and Sinti, traveled with him.
Related feature: Hated, Incarcerated, Evicted, Discriminated: Bulgaria’s Roma Minority
Main photo by Rudold Breslauer (Screenshot), public domain