Gypsi Holocaust ?

[witness]

Even if there is no evidence of Hitler's written order to eradicate the Jews still there are Wansee conference,numerous
Hitler's statements where he was threatening Jewry with annihilation etc.

What about Gypsies, Roma ?
Are there any such documents available stipulating the Nazis intentions towards Gypsies ?
My understanding is that Gypsies were to share the Jewish fate.However this issue is somewhat blurred in the Holocaust discussions.

Also I understand that before the war there were no plans to eradicate Jews but rather to get rid of them - the evidence being is the Madagascar
plan.
I am not aware of any similar plans for Gypsies..Could the absence of such plans indicate that there were intentions to target them for extermination already in the prewar period ?
What was the policy towards Gypsies ,Roma in this period and in the first
years of the war( AFAIK the systematic murder of Gypsies began somewhere in 1942 ) ?
Thanks in advance.

[Bill Medland]

Hi Witness,
I am glad you brought up the subject of Gypsies.
As I understand it Himmler saw them as a special race at first.
Gypsies were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they stayed in their family groups, where they led a "normal" life in a corner of the camp which was partitioned off, very much like refugees. Until it was decided what fate awaited them.
A burocratic mixup was responsible for 500 of the Gypsies being in Wehrmacht uniform at the camp, (they were taken from their units and sent direct to Birkenau!!).
Sadly, after a year? I am not sure how long, Himmler tired of them and the poor people went the way of the others.
I do not know how many died or lived.
regards,Bill.

[witness]

Thank you for reply Bill.
I agree that Himmler must have seen them as quite a "special race"

[chalutzim]

Witness, I've found at http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/holcaust.htm a lot of indications where to look on the subject. Maybe some of your questions will be answered:

The anti-Gypsy campaign in Germany, which was based on popular prejudices and discriminatory laws that predated the short-lived Weimar Republic, began shortly after Hitler assumed power in January 1933. Gypsies were castrated and sterilized, shipped to early concentration camps and barred from marrying Germans. A Central Office to "Combat the Gypsy Nuisance" opened in Munich in June 1936.

Many Gypsies were rounded up in Germany the week of June 12-18, 1938, "Gypsy Clean-Up Week," a precursor to Kristallnacht five months later.

In December of that year, the first known reference to "The Final Solution of the Gypsy Question" appeared in a document signed by SS Chief Heinrich Himmler. In January 1940, 250 Gypsy children were murdered in Buchenwald, used as guinea pigs in a test of Zyklon-B crystals.

http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/othervictims2.htm

Points to research:

1. "Central Office to Combat the Gypsy Nuisance".
2. "The Gypsy Clean-Up Week".
3. The document signed by Himmler.



I'll keep looking and if I found something usefull I'll post here. Regards.

[Dan]

In January 1940, 250 Gypsy children were murdered in Buchenwald, used as guinea pigs in a test of Zyklon-B crystals

?

[witness]

Hi Chalutzim.Thanks you for the link.
While indeed there is a lot of information on this site the inaccuracy of what Dan put under the question mark renders it dubious.
Regards.

[chalutzim]

Have someone knowledge about this document?

Proester, F. Vrazdeni Cs. Cikanu v Buchenwaldu - The murder of Czechoslovak Gypsies in Buchenwald. Document No. UV CSPB-K-135 of the Archives of the Museum of the Fighters against Fascism, Prague, 1940.

This document tells about the first "mass genocidal action of the Holocaust: the killing of 250 Gypsy children at Buchenwald, in a test of the gas Zyklon B."

Thanks and regards.

[Bill Medland]

I thought that ALL gypsies went to Birkenau?
and was Zyclon-B first tested in 1942?

Can anyone check up on this for me?

Regards,Bill.

[chalutzim]

I thought that ALL gypsies went to Birkenau?
and was Zyclon-B first tested in 1942?

Can anyone check up on this for me?

Regards,Bill.

While Birkenau still was a plan:

Buchenwald Roma and Sinti Memorial

Buchenwald. The Sinti and Roma were sent to many different camps. The memorial identifies a number of these camps. Visible in the center of the photograph are inscriptions to Buchenwald, Sobibor, and Sachsenhausen.
Photo credit: Florida Center for Instructional Technology

http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/Holocaust/GALL34R/BUCH55.HTM

[Roberto]

The Gypsies were the “best-loved” prisoners of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß. Here’s what he wrote about them in his autobiography:

[…]The next largest contingent [after Soviet prisoners of war] were the gypsies.
Long before the war gypsies were being rounded up and put into concentration camps as part of the campaign against a-socials. One department of the Reich Criminal Police Office was solely concerned with the supervision of gypsies. Repeated searches were made in the gypsy encampments for persons who were not true gypsies, and these were sent to concentration camps as shirkers or a-socials. In addition, the gypsy encampments were constantly being combed through for biological reasons. The Reichsführer SS wanted to ensure that the two main gypsy stocks be preserved: I cannot recall their names. In his view they were the direct descendants of the original Indo-Germanic race, and had preserved their ways and customs more or less pure and intact. He now wished to have them all collected together for research purposes. They were to be precisely registered and preserved as an historic monument.
Later they were to be collected from all over Europe, and allotted limited areas in which to dwell.
In 1937 and 1938 all itinerant gypsies were collected into so-called habitation camps near the larger towns, to facilitate supervision.
In 1942, however, an order was given that all gypsy-type persons on German territory, including gypsy half-castes, were to be arrested and transported to Auschwitz, irrespective of sex or age. The only exceptions were those who had been officially recognized as pure-blooded members of the two main tribes. There were to be settled in the Ödenburg district on the Neusiedlersee. Those transported to Auschwitz were to be kept there for the rest of the war in a family camp.
But the regulations governing their arrest were not drawn up with sufficient precision. Various offices of the Criminal Police interpreted them in different ways, and as a result persons were arrested who could not possibly be regarded as belonging to the category that it was intended to intern.
Many men were arrested while on leave from the front, despite high decorations and several wounds, simply because their father or mother of grandfather had been a gypsy or a gypsy half-caste. Even a very senior Party member, whose gypsy grandfather had settled in Leipzig, was among them. He himself had a large business in Leipzig, and had been decorated more than once during the First World War. Another was a girl student who had been a leader in the Berlin League of German Girls. There were many more such cases. I made a report to the Reich Criminal Police Office. As a result the gypsy camp was constantly under examination and many releases took place. But these were scarcely noticeable, so great was the number of those who remained.
I cannot say how many gypsies, including half-castes, were in Auschwitz. I only know that they completely filled one section of the camp designed to hold 10,000. Conditions in Birkenau were utterly unsuitable for a family camp. Every pre-requisite was lacking, even if it was intended that the gypsies be kept there only for the duration of the war. It was quite impossible to provide proper food for the children, although by referring to the Reichsführer SS I managed for a time to bamboozle the food offices into giving me food for the very young ones. This was soon stopped, however, for the Food Ministry laid down that no special children’s food might be issued to the concentration camps.
In July 1942 the Reichsführer SS visited the camp. I took him all over the gypsy camp. He made a most thorough inspection of everything, noting the overcrowded barrack-huts, the unhygienic conditions, the crammed hospital building. He saw those who were sick with infectious diseases, and the children suffering from Noma, which always made me shudder, since it reminded me of leprosy and of the lepers I had seen in Palestine – their little bodies wasted away, with gaping holes in their cheeks big enough for a man to see through, a slow putrefaction of the living body.
He noted the mortality rate, which was relatively low in comparison with that of the camp as a whole. The child mortality, however, was extraordinarily high. I do not believe that many new-born babies survived more than a few weeks.
He saw it all, in detail, and as it really was – and he ordered me to destroy them. Those capable of work were first to be separated from the others, as with the Jews.
I pointed out to him that the personnel of the gypsy camp was not precisely what he had envisaged being sent to Auschwitz. He thereupon ordered that the Reich Criminal Police Office should carry out a sorting as quickly as possible. This in fact took two years. The gypsies capable of work were transferred to another camp. About 4,000 gypsies were left by August 1944, and these had to go into the gas chambers. Up to that moment, they were unaware of what was in store for them. They first realized what was happening when they made their way, barrack-hut by barrack-hut, towards Crematorium I.
It was not easy to drive them into the gas chambers. I myself did not see it, but Schwarzhuber told me that it was more difficult than any previous mass destruction of Jews and it was particularly hard on him, because he knew almost every one of them individually, and had been on good terms with them. They were by their nature as trusting as children.
Despite the unfavorable conditions the majority of the gypsies did not, so far as I could observe, suffer much psychologically as a result of imprisonment, apart from the fact that it restricted their roving habits.
The overcrowding, poor sanitary arrangements and even to a certain extent the food shortage were conditions to which they had become accustomed in their normal, private way of life. Nor did they regard he sickness and the high mortality rate as particularly tragic. Their whole attitude was really that of children, volatile in thought and deed. They loved to play, even at work, which they never took quite seriously. Even in bad times they always tried to look on the bright side. They were optimists.
I never saw a scowling, hateful expression on a gypsy’s face. If one went into their camp, they would often run out of their barracks to play their musical instruments, or to let their children dance, or perform their usual tricks. There was a large playground where the children could run about to their heart’s content and play with toys of every description. When spoken to they would reply openly and trustingly and would make all sorts of requests. It always seemed to me that they did not really understand about their imprisonment.
They fought fiercely among themselves. Their hot blood and pugnacious natures made this inevitable in view of the many different tribes and clans thrown together here. The members of each clan kept very much together and supported each other. When it came to sorting out the able-bodied, the resulting separations and dislocations within the clan gave rise to many touching scenes and to much pain and tears.
They were consoled and comforted to a certain extent when they were told later they would all be together again.
For a while we kept the gypsies who were capable of work in the base camp at Auschwitz. They did their utmost to get a glimpse of their clan-mates from time to time, even if only from a distance. We often had to carry out a search after roll-call for homesick gypsies who had cunningly slipped back to join their clan.
Indeed, often, when I was in Oranienburg with the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, I was approached by gypsies who had known me in Auschwitz, and asked for news of other members of their clan. Even when these had been gassed long ago. Just because of their complete trust, it was always hard for me to give them an evasive answer.
Although they were a source of great trouble to me at Auschwitz, they were nevertheless my best-loved prisoners – if I may put it that way. They never managed to keep at any job for long. They ‘gypsied around’ too much for that, whatever they did. Their greatest wish was to be in a transport company, where they could travel all over the place, and satisfy their endless curiosity, and have a chance of stealing. Stealing and vagrancy are in their blood and cannot be eradicated. Their moral attitude is also completely different from that of other people. They do not regard stealing as in any way wicked. They cannot understand why a man should be punished for it. I am here referring to the majority of those interned, the real wandering gypsies, as well as those of mixed blood who had become akin to them. I do not refer to those who had settled in the towns. These had learnt too much of civilization, and what they learned was unfortunately not the best.
I would have taken great interest in observing their customs and habits if I had not been aware of the impending horror, namely the Extermination Order, which until mid-1944 was known only to myself and the doctors in Auschwitz.
By command of the Reichsführer SS the doctors were to dispose of the sick, and especially the children, as inconspicuously as possible.
And it was precisely they who had such trust in the doctors.
Nothing surely is harder than to grit one’s teeth and go through with such a thing, coldly, pitilessly and without mercy.[…]

A short overview of Nazi policies towards the Gypsies can be found under the following link:

http://www.ushmm.org/education/resource ... aSBklt.pdf

[Bill Medland]

Thanks for the information, I know so little about the fate of the Gypsies, as probably we all do? shame on us.
Bill.

[chalutzim]

Hi Chalutzim.Thanks you for the link.
While indeed there is a lot of information on this site the inaccuracy of what Dan put under the question mark renders it dubious.
Regards.

witness, actually the links I've provided are trustufull as the Holocaust History Organization recomends it:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/questi ... sies.shtml

regards. malka masha godois.

[Dan]

witness, actually the links I've provided are trustufull as the Holocaust History Organization recomends it:

In that case I unreservedly take back all critisizm of the sources.