Roma and Sinti genocide in Europe during WWII

Authors: Mirna Kovačić (Croatia), Petra Klima (Slovenia), Dumitrița Pichler-Ipati

(Austria)

Mentor: Loranda Miletić, ETTA, Croatia

Allocated total time of the LA: 90 minutes (2 school hours)

Target group (age indication and place in the curriculum),

Country Austria Croatia Slovenia

Age ca. 14 years old 14 - 15 years old 14 - 15 years old
indication

Place in the 8th grade: History History curriculum

curriculum - module 1:
Fascism - POV OŠ A.8.1. The student 9th-grade
National analyzes the
Socialism - interrelationships and Political characteristics
Political dynamics in individual of the 20th century:
Dictatorships societies during the 20th
century How the Nazis built the
- module 5: society of the chosen
Holocaust/Shoah, Racial, religious, national, Aryan race
Genocide and political, and ideological
Human Rights persecutions and sufferings, Collaboration and the
concentration camps, and resistance
- module 6: death camps. Holocaust and
Historical other crimes against Why the Holocaust
Cultures - humanity in Croatia, Europe happened
Cultures of and world context
Remembrance - How many victims were
Politics of POV OŠ D.8.2. The student caused by the IInd
Remembrance analyzes the impact World War
of wars and revolution on
the transformation Why communism
of state organizations in the collapsed in
20th and 21st centuries. Europestern bloc;
World War II in the world, Yugoslavia: the
Europe, and Croatia. bloodstain in Europe
Quisling regimes: the
example of the Independent What was the situation
State of Croatia. A policy of of Slovenian minorities
terror against citizens

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 (especially Jews, Serbs, and
Roma).
Antifascism - partisan
movement.

Teaching aims (What do we intend to achieve by this learning activity?):

Encourage students to reflect, research, and analyze the Roma and Sinti minority in
Europe, not only on the genocide during World War II, but also about the time before the
genocide and the situation today. Sensitize students on this topic by condemning all
forms of violence, persecution, and racism in modern Europe.

Learning outcomes (What will the learners know, and be able to do after taking part in
this learning activity?)

Students will be able to:

1. explain the meaning of new concepts in learning activity: Roma, Sinti, genocide,
Antigypsyism/anti-Roma discrimination
2. analyze different groups of Roma and Sinti communities in Europe
3. describe how racial laws were applied to the Roma and Sinti communities during
WWII
4. examine discrimination, exclusion, and persecution experienced by the Roma and
Sinti in the first half of the 20th century
5. compare the life of Roma person before and after the war
6. combine the past with the present by comparing, evaluating, and discussing the
political events of the present concerning the solution of the "Roma question" in
different European countries.

Introduction

Roma and Sinti before WWII (exposing prior thinking and knowledge)

a) Introduction to new terminology

Time frame: 10 minutes

Note for teachers: The first task in preparing to teach about Roma and Sinti genocide is
to clarify and expand students’ understanding of the complex set of historical events
known as the Genocide.

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The teacher is going to check students' understanding of three new terms (Roma and
Sinti, prejudice, genocide). Few photos will be shown to the students. They will analyse
them with the support of the teachers' questions.

The task for students:

ROMA/SINTI:

Photos: A. Roma and Sinti Before the War — English (romasintigenocide.eu)

sintiundroma.org | „Rassendiagnose: Zigeuner“
Holocaust Memorial Day Trust | Johann ‘Rukeli’ Trollmann (hmd.org.uk)

1. Who do you think these people are?

2. What are they doing in the photos? According to these photos can you assume
their social status, occupation, hobbies…

PREJUDICE:

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Photo:https://scroll.in/article/807086/graphic-novel-the-story-of-the-roma-europes-most-stigmatised-ethnic
-group
Questions:
1. What do you see in the graphic photo?
2. Can you translate the sentence?
3. At which time is the graphic made?
4. Can you briefly describe people's attitude towards Roma.

GENOCIDE:

D_Englisch_2013.indd (romasintigenocide.eu)

The Roma in Auschwitz - Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum — Google Arts & Culture

Questions:

1. What do you see in the photos?

2. Who do you think these people are?

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 3. Can you explain their facial expressions?
4. What do you think the second picture represents? Can you assume what were the
living conditions in those huts?
5. Can you assume what the last photo (the list) tries to tell us ?

After the introduction and discussion, the teacher projects the definitions of the new
terms Roma and Sinti, prejudices, and genocide on the school board or distributes them
to students in the form of handouts. They are asked to match the definitions with the
previous photos. In the second step, the teacher asks the students to study the meaning
of the words, genocide of Roma, in the list of key terms and connect them with the
meaning of the term genocide. After that, the teacher announces the title of the learning
activity.

b) Roma and Sinti: A European Minority

Time frame: 20 minutes

Note for teachers:

The teacher divides the students into several groups (optimally 3-5 students in a group).
The same photographic historical sources are presented to each group.

The teacher presents to the students photographs depicting the life of the Roma before
the beginning of World War II. Photos can be presented on a projection screen (via a
link) or printed (as worksheets). The photos show excerpts from the life of Roma
communities across Europe, their specific living conditions, belonging to different social
groups, and their different professions.

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https://sway.office.com/ExuaApTl7ScKvEWh?ref=Link

Sources of photographs:

1. https://www.romasintigenocide.eu/
2. Bársony, J. (ed.) 2013., Pharrajimos: fotografije i dokumenti, Artresor naklada, Zagreb
3. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/roma-gypsies-in-prewar-europe

Task for students:

Students choose two photographs that, in their opinion, best show the life of Roma
communities. Students in groups discuss the questions asked and express their
thoughts. After a brief agreement within the group, a representative of the group
presents the conclusions.

Questions:

1. Why did you choose that photo?

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 2. What is shown in the chosen photos? What do the protagonists do in the photos?
3. Describe their appearance.
4. Why do you think the chosen photo best illustrates the everyday life of Roma?
5. Name one similarity and one difference between members of Roma communities
shown in the photos?

Note for teachers:

The teacher invites the students to consider whether their interpretation of the
photographs was influenced by their previous knowledge (perhaps even prejudices)
about the Roma people or their cultures.

The teacher explains that the photos show Roma of different social statuses, different
occupations, some of the wealthy and respectable (an example is the photos of musician
Max Bamberg). One part of Roma communities lived a sedentary lifestyle while many
Roma still lived a nomadic lifestyle in search of better opportunities and their own
existence. The Roma people are marked (as well as other nations of Europe) by great
diversity.

The teacher asks the students questions by checking their previous knowledge of the
Roma people.

Questions:

1. Do you know where the Roma come from? What are the origins of Roma ?
What language do they speak? What religion do they belong to?
2. Do members of the Roma minority live in your region?
3. How well do you know their culture and customs?

Note for teachers:

A brief overview of the history of the Roma people you can find on

https://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/roma/histoculture_EN.asp

The teacher shows a video - We Call Ourselves "Roma"

Students, divided into groups, answer questions. The answers can be found in the video
material.

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Link: https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/video/we-call-ourselves-roma
(00:00 - 3:53)

4. The task for students:

After watching the video, students answer the questions.

Questions:

1. Is there a Roma state?

2. On which continent do most of the Roma live?

3. Where do Roma come from? When did Roma (in which historical period) start
immigrating to Europe? What skills did Roma immigrants have? What occupations were
they engaged in ?

5. What happens to many Roma after settling in European countries?

6. Consider how the poor position of the Roma in many European countries is linked to
their nomadic way of life. Consider how the way of life has affected the position of the
Roma in individual countries. In doing so, take care that it is 80% of the Romas in Europe
are sedentary and live where they settled since the XVI century. Among the Roma, only a
minority live a nomadic life.

c) Steps towards genocide

Time frame: 15 minutes

Note for teachers:

Research into the Roma Genocide is relatively recent, and cannot compare with the
numerous and substantial studies which have been carried out into experiences of the
Jewish population. Partly for this reason and partly because the records relating to
Roma victims are very incomplete, it is hard to give an accurate estimate of the number
of Roma affected

Even experts disagree, which can be seen in quotes with statistics. Such disagreement
is important to acknowledge, but the debate over numbers should not cloud the real
message behind the Roma Genocide: hundreds of thousands of innocent Roma were
brutally murdered, and the intention was to eliminate the entire Roma population. It's

8
important to underline that the assassinations concern families. 90% of the Romas in
Austria were killed, 80% in Germany and 90% in Czechoslovakia.

The task for students:

Teaching strategy: think - pair - share

A description of the strategy is available at the links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mig4olzUy4M

Statistics

Study statistics about Roma victims during WWII and answer:

1. How do you explain the different estimates for Roma victims?

2. What proportion of the Roma population were killed or otherwise affected by the
genocide?
3. Which other groups or communities were targeted or murdered by the Nazis and
their collaborators?

4. What was the intent behind these killings?

According to estimates, at least 500,000 Roma were exterminated during World War II by
the Nazi regime and their allies, and … in some countries, more than 80% of the Roma
population was exterminated…

European Parliament Resolution on the Occasion of International Roma Day

(2015/2615(RSP)

It is still unknown how many Roma fell victim to the Nazi persecution... Research has to
rely on estimations; whatever their testimony, a number of at least 250,000 victims is
considered highly probable.

Factsheets on Roma, Council of Europe

[w]e believe that something between half a million and a million and a half Romanies
were murdered in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe between 1939 and 1945

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Sybil Milton, Senior historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The repeated number of 500 000 Romani deaths in the Porrajmos is becoming the
conventional, accepted total. But we do not know this for a fact. The documentation has
not been completely located nor analyzed. We must guard against this figure becoming the
accepted total… the number, in reality, was in fact much higher.

Ian Hancock, Roma activist and academic

Sources: Keen, E.: Right to Remember: A Handbook for Education with Young People on
the Roma Genocide (Second edition) (2017), Council of Europe Publishing

The ten stages of genocide

Note for teachers: The intention of the Nazis and their collaborators was to eliminate
the entire Roma and Sinti population in Europe. This intention has been well
documented, and it is one of the key criteria for an act of mass killing to qualify as
genocide.

Social scientists and scholars have generally organized their understanding of genocide
in terms of the political structure within which it takes place, the context in which
genocide occurs, the motives of the perpetrator, the nature of the victims, and the stages
through which genocide passes.

Genocide is a process that develops in ten stages that are predictable but not inexorable
(see infographic below). ​The process is not linear. Stages may occur simultaneously.
Each stage is itself a process. Logically, later stages are preceded by earlier stages. But
all stages continue to operate throughout the process.

A. Infographic with ten stages of genocide

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https://www.hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocides/what-is-genocide/the-ten-sta
ges-of-genocide/

The teacher explains to the students that the process that led to this destruction of the
Roma community in Europe is called genocide and that they were introduced to its
definition at the beginning of the work. He/She announces the next step in which
students will become better acquainted with the individual stages of genocide.

Ten Stages of Genocide is a formula for how a society can engage in genocide. Genocide
cannot be committed by an individual or small group; rather, it takes the cooperation of
a large number of people and the state. The genocidal process starts with prejudice that
continues to grow. By knowing the stages of genocide, students are better equipped to
identify the warning signs. An infographic showing the 10 stages of genocide needs to be
displayed on a whiteboard in the classroom or multiplied and distributed to students.
The same should be done with the table, put it on display or multiply it for each student.
Teachers need to emphasize two important things before students continue working on
the next task. These are:

• The different and sometimes fluid categories of people involved in the genocide and
their motivations, perspectives, and roles: these categories include perpetrators (Nazis

11
and their collaborators and enablers), bystanders and witnesses, beneficiaries, resisters,
and rescuers, and victims and survivors.

• The diverse contexts for victims and survivors: Although all Roma and Sinti were
targeted by the Nazis and their collaborators, the forms and timing of attacks on Roma
varied in different countries, resulting in different survival rates and experiences for
Roma and Sinti across Europe and beyond. The table below provides data for Germany.
Many other European countries, such as Romania or The Independent State of Croatia
had similar or identical laws.

2. The task for students:

1. Take some time to explore the infographic of the ten stages of genocide
and the table with Anti-Roma laws and policies in Germany: a brief
history (1890 – 1945).
2. Find in the table at least three events that you can relate to a particular
level of genocide. Share your findings with your pair and then with the
whole group.

Anti-Roma laws and policies in Germany: a brief history (1890 – 1945)

1890 A conference is organized in Germany on the “Gypsies”. The Military is told to control the
movements of all Roma.

1909 A policy conference on “The Roma Question” is held. It is recommended that all Roma be
branded with easy identification.

1922 All Roma in German territories (but no other groups) have to be photographed and
fingerprinted for identification.

1928 All Roma are placed under permanent police surveillance. A professor publishes a
document suggesting that “it was the Roma who introduced foreign blood into Europe”.
More camps are built to contain Roma.

1934 Roma are taken for sterilization by injection and castration, and sent to camps at Dachau
and elsewhere. Two laws issued this year forbid Germans from marrying “Jews, Roma and
Negroes”.

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1939 The Office of Racial Hygiene issues a statement saying, “All Roma should be treated as
hereditarily sick; the only solution is elimination. The aim should therefore be the
elimination without hesitation of this defective element in the population”.

1940 The first mass genocidal action of the Holocaust: 250 children are used as guinea pigs to
test the cyanide gas crystal at the concentration camp at Buchenwald. Employment of any
kind is forbidden to Roma in this same year.

1941 In July the Nazi Final Solution to “kill all Jews, Roma and mental patients” is put into
operation. The genocide begins. 800 Roma are murdered in one action on the night of 24
December in Crimea.

June - August 1941 Deportations of 26,000 Roma from Romania. 36,000 will be murdered.

November 1941 5000 “Z“ and “ZM“ Germans are deported to ghettos.

Autumn 1941, 5007 Roma from Burgenland - Austria - (including 2700 children) were
deported to Terezin (no survivors in 1945).

1944 On 2 August, about 2,900 Roma are gassed and incinerated at Auschwitz-Birkenau in one
mass action, remembered by survivors as “Roma-night”.

1945 By the end of the war, 70% - 80% of the Roma population in Third Reich had been
annihilated by Nazis.

No Roma were called to testify at the Nuremberg Trials; no one testified on their behalf.
No war crime reparations have been paid to the Roma as a people.

Sources: Keen, E.: Right to Remember: A Handbook for Education with Young People on
the Roma Genocide (Second edition) (2017), Council of Europe Publishing

Main part

Roma and Sinti during WWII (Group Work) - Genocide

Time frame: 30 minutes

Teaching strategy: group work.

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In 1939, we Roma were still driving around freely in Austria with wagons and horses.
My mother was thirty-two years old at the time, my father too. We were six children
[...]. Of course, we also had to attend school wherever we were. I still remember my
first day at school, my father Wackar took me there. I was mighty proud.
We were somewhere in Styria at the time, in 1939, when my folks learned that we
were no longer allowed to travel around. Things got worse and worse for us until my
father decided to go to Vienna. He said that he had a good acquaintance in Vienna [...]
with a big place. Maybe we could put our caravans with him and live there for a while.
And so we went to Vienna, to the sixteenth district [...] to Mr. Sprach. This man
welcomed us warmly, but he said to my father: "Karl, the caravan is too conspicuous,
you have to convert it into a small wooden house." That's what happened. We children
came back to school. [...]
Gusti, my father's brother, visited us with his family, he too had three children. During
this bad time, our families tried to stay close together. But we didn't stand a chance. I
still remember exactly how we played with our cousins for the last time. They were
never seen again. A whole family had disappeared, and to this day no one knows what
happened to them.
One day the Gestapo picked up our father Karl Wackar Horvath from our place. They
came in a small car and pushed him inside. We children stood there, in tears for our
father. He waved once more, then they drove off with him. That was 1941 and my last
memory of him. We never saw him again. Now we children were forbidden to go to
school. The Gestapo put a Spanish fence around our little wooden house and forbade
us to be outside it. Yes, we already felt Auschwitz in our liberty. [...]
The SS men often made large-scale raids. They pushed in our little door, pulled us out
of our beds, and held their flares in our faces. It became more and more unbearable.
Our landowners helped us wherever they could. Frau Sprach and Frau Brösel hid us
and took us under their protection, but then even they could take no more. Our mother
said, "There might be another big raid today. Listen carefully, we'll go to the Congress
Park and hide under the leaves, you mustn't take your clothes off." So we could still live
undetected, but only for a little while, with a lot of fear.
My sister Kathi had a friend, Fritz Karasek, he had a very dear mother. The two of them
helped us hide. But they had already been warned and told that they were practicing
racial defilement because they were consorting with a Gypsy woman. These people
didn't have it easy either. [...] These people tried to help us again and again, but soon
nothing helped. And what had to come happened: My sister Kathi was arrested.
Now we were no longer safe anywhere, no one dared to help us. So we hid in our little
wooden house or in the congress bath. Mum would sometimes sneak away and get
bread and milk from somewhere, and our good Mrs. Brösel could sometimes run
hidden to our Spanish grille and throw us a rabbit. She also brought us drinking water.
She was really a kind-hearted person. She told our mother that there was a big goulash
can at the end of the road and you could get something. My mother was very scared
and said that gypsies certainly don't get anything to eat. I quickly put on a cap, took a
pot, and ran down the street. There were a lot of people crowding towards this
goulash can. In this crowd, I also got a pot full, and we were able to live on for another
day.
[...]
In 1943, the Gestapo came to our house in Paletzgasse. At six o'clock in the morning,
they pushed down our little door. They had huge light batteries in their hands and

14
shouted at us children: "Go, go! Everybody up! Where is your mother? She's not hiding,
is she? Come on, tell us where she is!" My brother then had to tell them where she was.
The fear was very great. Two SS men drove to Odoakergasse and took our mother and
the three grandchildren of my godmother. [...] "Come on, pack your most necessary
things, you'll be home soon anyway, you won't need much more." So they pushed us
towards a green open wagon. My godmother's three grandchildren were sitting there,
scared and trembling, they were five, four, and three years old. We were all trembling
with fear. [...] The little children were crying, we were hardly wearing anything.
[...]
The first day was very sad. We mourned our father. [...] She was now alone with six
children after all. The next day more and more people came into this room, so it
became more and more cramped. Then the Gestapo came and took our three brothers
Hansi, Karli and Ossi. They shaved them bald and we sisters sat there and cried. But it
was to get even worse. No one could imagine what was going to happen now, what the
people were going to do with us. When the room was so full that there was no room
for a mouse, the transport to Auschwitz was organized. We were squeezed into a
wagon. [...] That's how it went all the way to Auschwitz.

abridged from: Stojka, Ceija, Wir leben im Verborgenen. Aufzeichnungen einer Romni
zwischen zwei Welten, Wien, 2013, 9-15.
[Original text is in German; translated into English with deepl.com]
Students are divided into three groups. Each group studies the teaching material
(historical sources, photographs, testimonies) and seeks answers to the questions
asked. After the students have studied the sources and formulated the answers to the
questions asked, a plenary presentation of the group work follows. During the
presentation, the teacher can ask the students of each group what stages of genocide
they recognize in the material they worked on.

Group 1: Classification – Dehumanisation – Preparation

Short theoretical background:

As you already know, the process leading up to genocide is gradual. First, the
application of distinguishing symbols is obligatory. Then human rights are stripped
away so that people are equated with animals, insects, or diseases. Afterwards the
dominant group uses law, custom, and political power to deny the rights of other
groups. For example, school attendance was prohibited. Furthermore, they used
euphemisms to cloak their intentions, such as referring to their goals as “purification”
or “resettlement.”

Activity 1:

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Ceija Stojka was born 1933 in Austria. Her family followed a nomadic life traveling
around Austria. In 1943 she and other family members were deported to the
Ausschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Read the short excerpt from her autobiography and complete the assignments below.
1. What is the text passage about? Give the key points in your own words.
2. What is happening?
3. When and where does it take place?
4. Who is involved and how are these persons described?
5. How does she talk about the people who helped her and her family?

a. Can you find examples in the text related to classification, dehumanization,

or
b. preparation? Mark the corresponding passages in the text above.
c. What was it like to be classified, dehumanized, and deported in a
concentration camp? How is it described?
d. Why do you think Ceija Stojka decided to write about the experience?
e. What do you think someone who had lived through this as a child would
feel afterwards about the people that did this to his/ her and to his/ her
family?

Do some research on the internet about Ceija Stojka live and write down important
points that could be useful for the presentation.

Activity 2:

The National Socialists believed that all Roma and Sinti would have the potential to
commit a crime because it was part of their biological inheritance. In the interests of the
so-called “crime prevention” the National Socialists, therefore, arrested all “potential
criminals”.
In this context, such file cards were created as you can see below.

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Photo source: online under URL:
<http://www.rothenburg-unterm-hakenkreuz.de/sinti-und-roma-was-mit-der-ausgrenzung-
begann-endete-mit-voelkermord-bis-zu-500-000-menschen-fielen-dem-rassenwahn-der-nati
onalsozialisten-zum-opfer/ > [last accessed 04.11.2021]

Look at the photo and answer the following questions:

1. What do you see?

2. What does this photo remind you of? Who is usually photographed like this?

3. What information does the source reveal about the person portrayed?

4. For what reason could it have been taken? Why was Martin Bello photographed in
this way?

5. What is not visible in the photo?

6. What impression does Martin Bello make on you?

Group 2: PERSECUTION

Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity.
Death lists are drawn up. Members of victim groups are forced to wear identifying

17
symbols. Their property is expropriated. They are often segregated into ghettos, forced
into concentration camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and starved.

Note for the teachers:

Students will be divided into 3 pairs. Each pair will firstly get questions to read them
through in order to later find answers with the help of the summary of the source.
Students will be led to the main term: persecution.

Read the summary above and answer the following questions or do the
assignments:

1. Where and when does the text take place?

2. Who is the text about?
3. What is his/her ethnic belonging?
4. Does his/her ethnic belonging affect his life among Germans? In what way? Find
an example in the text.
5. Was the person forced to leave his/her home? If so, where and in what way?
6. Can you name the act of oppressing or cruel treatment because of the race with
only one word?
7. Can you describe the mental or/and physical consequences of oppressing the
people mentioned in the text?
(Text 2): Holocaust Memorial Day Trust | HMDT Blog: Auschwitz-Birkenau’s Roma survivors

Photo: Die Opfer von Mittelbau-Dora (highend-archaeology.eu

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ewald_Hanstein_1995.jpg

German Sinto Ewald Hanstein was born in 1924. He grew up in

Breslau (then Germany, now Poland) until his family decided to
move to Berlin in 1936. They hoped to experience less
discrimination as Sinti there, and his father, a member of the
Communist Party, also expected to escape Gestapo surveillance.
However, when they arrived in Berlin, they were immediately sent
to the city’s newly established Marzahn camp. In June 1938, all
men from Marzahn above the age of 14 were deported to
Sachsenhausen concentration camp on the outskirts of Berlin to
carry out forced labour, including Ewald’s father, his brother Paul
and two of his uncles. Barely 14 himself, Ewald became the head of
his remaining family, but went underground in 1940 when he was
called up for the German army. He was eventually betrayed and in May 1943 deported to the
Auschwitz Zigeunerfamilienlager. In the camp, he was reunited with members of his family

18
who had also been deported to Auschwitz, and his unbending sense of responsibility for
them helped him survive forced labour, malnutrition, ill-treatment and typhus.
On 16 May 1944, he witnessed the resistance put up by the Roma and Sinti as the SS
attempted to ferry them to the gas chambers. In early August, knowing that the liquidation of
the Zigeunerfamilienlager was only a matter of days, he took the most difficult decision of his
life: he joined the last transport from Auschwitz to Buchenwald concentration camp and left
his remaining family behind to face certain death in the gas
chambers. He was tormented until his final days by the crying of
his fellow Roma when his train pulled out.
After a few weeks in Buchenwald, Ewald was sent to
Mittelbau-Dora. In early April 1945, when Mittelbau-Dora was
evacuated, he was forced on a death march through the Harz
mountains until he was eventually liberated by American troops
south of Magdeburg, weighing just 40 kg.
Ewald died in 2009 in Bremen. In his 2005 autobiography, he
wrote: ‘Sometimes, when I lie in bed at night, I see their faces:
that of my mother Maria, my father Peter, my sisters Gertrud,
Elisabeth, Lydia and Ramona, my brother Gregor, my
grandmother and of all the others. Not one of them survived
Auschwitz, and the Nazis even took all the photos away – but I
recall them vividly. I am astonished that I am still alive: why me?’

Read the summary above and answer the following questions or do the assignments:
1. Where and when does the text take place?
2. Who is the text about?
3. What is his/her ethnic belonging?
4. Does his/her ethnic belonging affect his life among Germans? In what way? Find
an example in the text.
5. Was the person forced to leave his/her home? If so, where and in what way?
6. Can you name the act of oppressing or cruel treatment because of the race with
only one word?
7. Can you describe the mental or/and physical consequences of oppressing the
people mentioned in the text ?

Pair 3 (Text 3): Holocaust Memorial Day Trust | Johann ‘Rukeli’ Trollmann (hmd.org.uk)
Photos: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trollmanngross.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bewegung_Nurr_Trollmann_Viktoriapark.jpg

Read the summary below and answer the following questions or do the
assignments:
1. Where and when does the text take place?
2. Who is the text about?
3. What is his/her ethnic belonging?
4. Does his/her ethnic belonging affect his life among Germans? In what way? Find
an example in the text.

19
5. Was the person forced to leave his/her home? If so, where and in what way?
6. Can you name the act of oppressing or cruel treatment because of the race with
only one word?
7. Can you describe the mental or/and physical consequences of oppressing the
people mentioned in the text?

20
 Johann ‘Rukeli’ Trollmann was born on 27 December 1907 near
Hannover as one of nine children into a German Sinti family. He
took up boxing at the age of eight and won several
championships before he was 20.

However, in 1928 he was denied a place in the German team for

the Amsterdam Summer Olympics because of his ‘non-German’
boxing style. With the rise of the Nazis, the right-wing media
increasingly abused him as ‘the Gypsy in the ring’. On 9 June
1933, Rukeli boxed against Adolf Witt for the German
light-heavyweight title. Rukeli was on course to win when the
Nazi chairman of the boxing authority intervened, ordering the judges to call a ‘no
decision’ and not award the title. This decision caused such an uproar among the
audience that Rukeli had to be crowned champion after all, but only a few days later he
was stripped of the title again by the German boxing authorities because of ‘bad boxing’.
A new fight was scheduled for 21 July, and Rukeli was ordered to fight in the ‘German
style’ and ‘not to dance like a Gypsy’. He knew he was meant to lose this fight because he
was a Sinto. Rukeli entered the ring with his face and body powdered white with flour
and his hair dyed blonde: a caricature of an Aryan and a courageous act of protest against
his discrimination. He just stood still and took the blows of his opponent Gustav Eder
until he was knocked out in the fifth round. This marked the end of his boxing career. He
struggled to fend for himself, was sent twice to Hannover-Ahlen labour camp, and went
into hiding for a time to avoid further persecution. Following the outbreak of war in
1939, he was drafted into the German army. In 1942, he was dishonorably discharged
from the Wehrmacht for racial reasons, along with all Sinti and Roma, and soon after
arrested by the Gestapo, severely tortured, and transported to Neuengamme
concentration camp near Hamburg. The camp commandant recognized him as the former
boxing star and ordered him to train the camp’s SS men at night. He was transferred to
Wittenberge, but here, too, he was recognized as the former boxer, and was made to fight
Emil Cornelius, a feared kapo. Trollmann won against
him, but in a brutal act of revenge, Cornelius beat him to
death with a club in March 1944.

In November 2003, the German Boxing Association

finally recognized Rukeli as the winner of the 1933
championship fight and included him in their list of
German boxing champions. His championship belt was
given to his surviving relatives.

21
Group 3: EXTERMINATION

EXTERMINATION begins and quickly becomes the mass killing legally called “genocide.”
It is “extermination” to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully
human. When it is sponsored by the state, the armed forces often work with civilians to
do the killing.

Note for teachers:

“Gypsy family camp” Auschwitz

On December 16, 1942, Heinrich Himmler gave out the directive that all “Gypsies” still
living in the “German Reich” were to be deported to Auschwitz. The “Auschwitz Decree”
was the final revelation of a plan which had existed de facto since 1938 and had been
partially carried out already, namely the complete extinction of “Gypsies”. Of all the
Auschwitz camps, the “Gypsy camp” had the highest mortality rate. 22,400 people lost
their lives there, 6000 were children under 14. Important to mention the difference
between Zigeuner“ and “Zigeuner Mischlingue“

Teacher preparation materials:

https://www.roma-sinti-holocaust-memorial-day.eu/history/zigeunerfamilienlager-gypsy-family-camp/
https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1942-1945/liquidation-of-gypsy-family-camp-at-aus
chwitz-birkenau
http://auschwitz.org/en/history/categories-of-prisoners/sinti-and-roma-gypsies-in-auschwitz/

The teacher distributes worksheets with teaching materials to the groups.

Activity 1

Historical sources:

„... additionally to the Jews, normally only the Gypsies belong to impure races in
Europe ...“ (Nuremberg Laws 1935.)

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„It was the wish of the all-powerful Reichsführer Adolf Hitler to have the Gypsies
disappear from the face of the earth.“ (SS Officer Pery Broad, Auschwitz Political
Division)

„All Gypsies should be treated as hereditarily sick; the only solution is elimination. The
aim should therefore be the elimination without hesitation of this defective element in
the population.“ (Johannes Behrendt, Office of Racial Hygiene”)

Source: Keen, E.: Right to Remember: A Handbook for Education with Young People on the
Roma Genocide (Second edition) (2017), Council of Europe Publishing

The task for students:

Students in pairs answer the questions asked. A representative of the pairs draws
conclusions.

1. What do the historical sources you read have in common ?

2. What kind of “solution” to the Roma issue was proposed ?
3. Find in the text and read the sentences in which you can find confirmation that,
in the essence of Nazi policy, the complete extermination of the Roma population
was planned. (Important to make understand that there are different
assassination policies and processes which complete each other on a local,
regional and national level for the realisation of the genocide. The role of the
KRIPO, the Institution for Racial hygiene, Wehrùacht... )

Activity 2 - Testimony

The task for students:

Maria Peter – deported to Auschwitz

“We travelled for two and a half days. We reached Auschwitz in the middle of the night.
My whole family was there: my parents, my brothers Eduard and Josef … and my three
sisters Antonia, Josefina, and Katharine with their husbands and children … . They
crowded us into the barracks. At dawn, we got tea in enormous bowls. I drank my tea
outside in front of the barracks and I saw – for the first time I saw something so terrible,

23
and I will never forget the sight – a pile of naked bodies. The sight of the corpses
terrified me so much that I went back inside the barracks … .

In Birkenau we all had to do slave labour. I worked on the building of the camp road,
carrying heavy stones. My sister-in-law and her three children came down with typhus
and died in the Krankenbau. They were the first members of our family to die in
Auschwitz. Next, my sister Josefina’s husband died of pneumonia which he picked up
while doing hard labour in the camp. Then her oldest child died, and so one member of
our family after another died. My sister Josefina Steinach had nine children and all but
one of them died in the camp. To this day I cannot conceive of how the other eight
survived until the beginning of August 1944, which is when they were all killed with gas.
My sister could have lived. They wanted to send her to Ravensbrück before the
liquidation of the Zigeunerlager. She refused on account of her children. She told the SS
men that she was not leaving without her children. When the last transport was leaving
Auschwitz, she died in the gas chamber … . My mother also stayed in Auschwitz. I did
everything in my power for her, but my mother fell ill one day. She was running a high
fever and the Blockaltester (block elder) announced that she had to go to the infirmary
block. She had boils all over her body. They lanced those boils there and swabbed them
with some kind of yellow fluid. She started seeing things and died several days later. My
father and my sister Antonia also died in Auschwitz …

I ended up in the barracks for children in Birkenau. That was the last barracks on the
side nearer the entrance to Birkenau … . it was designated especially for children. I
looked after the children during the day, and I served their dinner at noon. Those
barracks were also where the orchestra rehearsed. I remember SS man Konig very well;
after all, he gave me a flogging. He was present at almost every execution by shooting
and during the arrival of new transports. Konig gave me a flogging because I defended
myself. It happened because of my sister Josefina’s children. She didn’t get food for them.
I saw – and others saw it too – how Konig gave a crate full of food to the block nurse. All I
wanted was for the children to have something to eat. So I complained…. I didn’t think I
was going to live through it…. I’ll remember this till I die…”

’Voices of Memory’ , memorial book: The Gypsies at Auschwitz-Birkenau vol 2, Munich,

London, New York, Paris, 1993

Source: Keen, E.: Right to Remember: A Handbook for Education with Young People on the
Roma Genocide (Second edition) (2017), Council of Europe Publishing

24
 Questiones:

1. How did members of Mary's family arrive in Auschwitz? Where were they placed
immediately upon arrival?

2. What work did they have to do upon arrival in Auschwitz-Birkenau?

3. How did members of Mary's family lose their lives in Auschwitz?

4. How could Mary's sister escape death? What was her decision?

5. Briefly describe Mary’s experience of living in the camp after being moved to the
children’s barracks in Birkenau.

6. What emotions does this testimony evoke in you?

5. Conclusion - 15 minutes

How to link the past with the present?

Conclusion: What does the past have to do with the present?

Zoni Weisz, a Nazi survivor, Dutch, was the first Sinto to be allowed to speak in the
German Bundestag on 27 January 20211 on the occasion of the Day of Remembrance of
the Victims of National Socialism.
Here is a small excerpt of his speech:

[…] Allow me to say something about the state of Sinti and Roma in today's Europe.
The situation of the Sinti and Roma in large parts of Europe is disturbing. It is
inhumane how Sinti and Roma are treated, especially in many Eastern European
countries. The vast majority have no opportunities, no jobs, no education, and no
proper medical care. Discrimination, stigmatization, and exclusion are the order of
the day. There are ghettos for Roma, ghettos with a wall around them. These
countries are members of the European Union, call themselves civilized. But
civilization also means respect for people, regardless of their origin, skin colour or
religion. A civilized society respects human rights!
We, Roma and Sinti, have a right to equal opportunities and possibilities, for
everyone. No more and no less. We are Europeans and must have the same rights as
every other resident, with equal opportunities as they apply to every European.
It cannot and must not be that Sinti and Roma, who have been discriminated against
and persecuted throughout the centuries, are still excluded today, in the 21st
century, and deprived of any honest chance for a better future. […]

25
from: Detzner, Milena et al. (edd.), Antiziganismus – Rassistische Steoreotype und
Diskriminierung von Sinti und Roma. Grundlagen für eine Bildungsarbeit gegen
Antiziganismus, Düsseldorf, 2014, 2.
[Original text is in German; translated into English with deepl.com]

Read the short excerpt from Zoni Weisz's speech, think about the following questions,
and exchange ideas with the person sitting next to you. Afterwards, we will discuss them
together.
1. What is being talked about? Give the key statements in your own words?
2. What is being criticized? What are the common forms of discrimination against the
Roma?
3. Why is this unacceptable?
4. What is being proclaimed by Zoni Wiesz?
5. Are parallels to the past recognizable?
6. What do you think someone who had lived through all those horrific events as a child
would feel afterwards about the society that did this to him?
7. Do you think ‘labelling’ of Roma still takes place in your country?
9. Imagine you heard or came across a nasty comment about “the Roma”: what would
you do? Do you think it would make a difference if people started objecting to such
comments?
10. How could the situation be improved? What should individuals do and what the
governments do? What would you do?

Homework task
What can we do?

Students compile a list of "What can we do?" writing down their suggestions that should
lead to better inclusion of Roma in society, removing prejudice and the absence of
discriminatory behavior.

List of Key Terms

Antigypsyism/anti-Roma discrimination

26
The non-legally binding working definition of Antigypsyism/anti-Roma discrimination
(International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, Adopted on 8 October 2020)

Acknowledging with concern that the neglect of the genocide of the Roma has
contributed to the prejudice and discrimination that many Roma** communities still
experience today, and accepting our responsibility to counter such forms of racism and
discrimination (Articles 4 and 7 of the IHRA 2020 Ministerial Declaration, article 3 of
the Stockholm Declaration), the IHRA adopts the following working definition of
antigypsyism/anti-Roma discrimination:

Antigypsyism/anti-Roma discrimination is a manifestation of individual expressions

and acts as well as institutional policies and practices of marginalization, exclusion,
physical violence, devaluation of Roma cultures and lifestyles, and hate speech directed
at Roma as well as other individuals and groups perceived, stigmatized, or persecuted
during the Nazi era, and still today, as “Gypsies.” This leads to the treatment of Roma as
an alleged alien group and associates them with a series of pejorative stereotypes and
distorted images that represent a specific form of racism.

To guide the IHRA in its work, the following is being recognized:

Antigypsyism/anti-Roma discrimination has existed for centuries. It was an essential

element in the persecution and annihilation policies against Roma as perpetrated by
Nazi Germany, and those fascist and extreme nationalist partners and other
collaborators who participated in these crimes.

Antigypsyism/anti-Roma discrimination did not start with or end after the Nazi era but
continues to be a central element in crimes perpetrated against Roma. Despite the
important work done by the United Nations, the European Union, the Council of Europe,
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and other international bodies,
the stereotypes, and prejudices about Roma have not been delegitimized or discredited
vigorously enough so that they continue to persist and can be deployed largely
unchallenged.

Antigypsyism/anti-Roma discrimination is a multi-faceted phenomenon that has

widespread social and political acceptance. It is a critical obstacle to the inclusion of
Roma in broader society, and it acts to prevent Roma from enjoying equal rights,
opportunities, and gainful social-economic participation.

27
Many examples may be given to illustrate antigypsyism/anti-Roma discrimination.
Contemporary manifestations of antigypsyism/anti-Roma discrimination could, taking
into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:

■ Distorting or denying persecution of Roma or the genocide of the Roma.

■ Glorifying the genocide of the Roma.
■ Inciting, justifying, and perpetrating violence against Roma communities, their
property, and individual Roma.
■ Forced and coercive sterilizations as well as other physically and psychologically
abusive treatment of Roma.
■ Perpetuating and affirming discriminatory stereotypes of and against Roma.
■ Blaming Roma, using hate speech, for real or perceived social, political, cultural,
economic, and public health problems.
■ Stereotyping Roma as persons who engage in criminal behavior.
■ Using the term “Gypsy” as a slur.
■ Approving or encouraging exclusionary mechanisms directed against Roma
based on racially discriminatory assumptions, such as the exclusion from regular
schools and institutional procedures or policies that lead to the segregation of
Roma communities.
■ Enacting policies without legal basis or establishing the conditions that allow for
the arbitrary or discriminatory displacement of Roma communities and
individuals.
■ Holding Roma collectively responsible for the real or perceived actions of
individual members of Roma communities.
■ Spreading hate speech against Roma communities in whatever form, for example
in media, including on the internet and social networks.

* The use of the national equivalent of the term is recommended, Canada and the United
States use the term anti-Roma racism.

** The word ‘Roma’ is used as an umbrella term which includes different related groups,
whether sedentary or not, such as Roma, Travellers, Gens du voyage, Resandefolket/De
resande, Sinti, Camminanti, Manouches, Kalés, Romanichels, Boyash/Rudari, Ashkalis,
Égyptiens, Yéniches, Doms, Loms and Abdal that may be diverse in culture and lifestyles.
The present is an explanatory footnote, not a definition of Roma.
https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitions-charters/wo
rking-definition-antigypsyism-anti-roma-discrimination

28
Concentration camps are a place in which large numbers of people, especially political
prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a
relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to
await mass execution. The term is most strongly associated with the several hundred
camps established by the Nazis in Germany and occupied Europe 1933–45, among the
most infamous being Dachau, Belsen, and Auschwitz.

Death camps/killing centers: camps that were established for the systematic murder
of Jews and Roma. The Kulmhof (Chelmno) gas van station and the Belzec, Sobibor, and
Treblinka camps served this purpose exclusively. Auschwitz, Majdanek, and
MalyTrostinets contained facilities similar to those in the death camps as well as playing
roles as concentration camps, labor camps, or transit camps.

Genocide refers to the coordinated and planned destruction of a group of people (as
that "group" is defined by the perpetrators). While genocide is almost always
accompanied by mass killing, this crime is an attempt to destroy the group, not
necessarily to murder every member of that group. Some call genocide "the crime of
crimes". Others label genocide as the ultimate crime against humanity because the
genocide aims to eradicate a part of humanity.

Genocide is defined in the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of

the Crime of Genocide. In this, acts constitute genocide if they are committed "with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as
such". Whereas this is the legally applicable definition of genocide, the term genocide
predates the 1948 Convention and few scholars are wholly satisfied with this definition,
partly because of the practical difficulties in proving "intent". Scholars have for decades
presented and debated a series of alternative definitions of what constitutes "genocide",
often wanting to expand the list of groups contained in the UN definition.

The Holocaust, the Nazi program to murder all European Jews during the Second World
War, is today defined as genocide. However, during the Nuremberg trials in the
immediate post-war period, perpetrators were not indicted for the crime of genocide
but instead for aggression, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide aims and
other offenses (the reason being that the crime of genocide was not introduced into
international law until the UN Genocide Convention of 1948).

The term "genocide" was coined during the Second World War by the lawyer Raphael
Lemkin to mean the intentional destruction of national groups based on their collective

29
identity. Lemkin's purpose was to use this term to bring about a framework of
international law with which to prevent and punish what the British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill had described as "a crime without a name". In this, Lemkin was
extraordinarily successful: by 1948 the new United Nations had been persuaded to draft
the UN Convention on Genocide.

The international legal definition of the crime of genocide is found in Article II of the
1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts
committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or
religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

While it must be stressed that this remains as the only legal definition of genocide, still it
should also be noted that many scholars disagree with this definition, finding the list of
possible victim groups too narrow or that the need to prove intent is too demanding.

https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/educational-materials/holocaust-
and-other-genocides

Labor camps: also called slave labor camps. a penal colony where inmates are forced to
work. Nazis established specific Arbeitslager (labor camps) which housed Ostarbeiter
(eastern workers), Fremdarbeiter (foreign workers), and other forced laborers who
were forcibly rounded up and brought in from the east. These were separate from the
SS-run concentration camps, where prisoners were also forced to perform labor.

Porajmos: Cutting up/ Fragmentation was the attempt made by Nazi Germany and its
allies to exterminate the Romani people of Europe during World War II. Under Hitler's
rule, both Roma and Jews were defined as "enemies of the race-based state" by the
Nuremberg laws; the two groups were targeted by similar policies and persecution,

30
culminating in the near annihilation of both populations within Nazi-occupied
countries. Estimates of the death toll of Romanies in World War II range from 220,000 to
1,500,000. West Germany formally recognized the genocide of the Roma in 1982.

Prejudice: Any attitude held towards a person or group that is not justified by the facts.
Prejudice includes negative and positive attitudes towards people solely based on their
race, ethnicity, gender, or sex.

Racial laws: legal provisions directed against Jews and Roma passed immediately after
the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia, following the example of Nazi
Germany, ie

Nuremberg Laws, the influence of which is visible especially in the definition of Aryan
origin. Racial laws, which declared that only persons of Aryan blood could be Croatian
citizens, were the mainstay of the policy of extermination of Jews and Roma.

Racism: institutional and/or individual prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism

directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s race is
superior.

Roma: members of the Indo-European people of Indian origin, migrated from India and
settled around the world. In European countries, they were given different names, e.g.
Gypsy, germ. Zigeuner, Spanish. Gitanos, franc. Bohemians, ital. Zingari. In Croatia, until
the second half of the 20th century, they were called Gypsies, Jeđupi, and other names.
At the First Roma Congress, held in April 1971 in London, wishing to warn of the need to
improve their social position, the name Roma (in the Romani language "man") was
accepted as a common name for all Roma groups.

Romani is a member of a traditionally itinerant people who originated in northern India

and now live chiefly in south and southwest Asia, Europe, and North America.

Romani-chib or Romance is a language whose ramifications date back to the early

Middle Ages. It belongs to the medieval Greek world. It is codified and has teaching and
literature (in Latin). Today it has around 1.5 million speakers mainly in Europe. The
main element of this language is Indo-Aryan (with 900 roots) with Persian, Armenian
and Greek roots. There are three sub-groups in this language: that of the Kale of Spain
and of the English-speaking Romanichels (where there are around a hundred Romani
terms), that of the Sinto-Manouches (with borrowings from the Germanic and Baltic
languages ​with 1,500 Romani terms) and that of from the Roma of the Balkans, common
Romani or Kelderari (with borrowings from Romanian, Slavic languages ​and all the
languages ​of the Balkans).

31
Samudaripen: The term was first used in the 1970s in Yugoslavia in the context of
Auschwitz and Jasenovac. It is a neologism of (Romani for ‘all’) and Samudaripen
(murder) and can be translated as ‘murder of all’ or ‘mass murder’. Using the term
Samudaripen to denote genocide over Roma is based on the decision of the 9th Congress
of the International Roma Union, held in Riga 2016. year, in which it was concluded that
the term Porajmos and its other variants are inappropriate for marking the genocide of
the Roma.

Sinti: a subgroup of the Roma people; Sinti mostly live in Central Europe and their name
comes from the Indian province of Sindh. It is believed that this group separated from
other Roma groups in the 16th century in the area of the German states, where it was
only in the 19th century that it mostly adopted a sedentary lifestyle.

32