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Introduction
In addition to the approximately 6 million Jews who were the targets of a complete annihilation policy in the Nazi Holocaust were an estimated 5.5 million "enemies of the German State" who were murdered under equally inhumane circumstances -- criminals and asocials, the insane, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, political criminals such as communists and socialists, and Gypsies. Estimates of the number of Gypsies murdered run from a high of 500,000 to 600,000 (Jan Yoors, 1971:34) to a more conservative figure of 200,000 (Martin Gilbert, 1981,). There has been some debate regarding the inclusion of Gypsies under the subject of the Holocaust since they were persecuted prior to the Holocaust as political criminals and as "asocial" (cf. Burleigh and Wipperman, 1991). However, there has never been any question regarding the genocidal nature of Nazi policy toward this group. The question seems to be whether it was ever the official policy or intent of the Nazis to completely exterminate them any more than it was Nazi policy to exterminate all Poles (cf., Landau, 1994:117). There is some evidence that prior to 1942, Himmler favored sparing a couple of gypsy tribes which had been defined as "pure gypsies." However, by December 16, 1942, he ordered all gypsies in Germany deported to Auschwitz.
Their inclusion here is based upon the following facts:
Even though they are not specifically mentioned in theNuremberg Laws of 1935 as non-Aryan, by 1937, those statutes were extended to include them and to define them as unassimilable with Aryan blood.
The deportation of Gypsies was placed under Himmler's authority in 1942 and he ordered their extermination.
Who Are the Gypsies?
It is not only in the highly romanticized versions of popular lore that the "Gypsies" are shrouded in mystery; scientific accounts of their origins reflect some degree of uncertainty as well. It appears that the term "gypsy" is a corruption of "Egyptian," reflecting the widespread belief during the Middle Ages that these people were of Egyptian origin. It is most likely that they originated in northern India, in the Punjab region. Another interpretation claims that they acquired the name "gypsies" from their settlement in the Greek Peloponneseus near a village named "Gyppe" (see Burleigh and Wippermann, 1991:331n). The people fairly consistently call themselves Rom, or Roma.
What is known about the Sinti and Roma is that they arrived in Germany in the late 1400's after a series of migrations which brought them from northern India, through Persia, Asia Minor and Greece, the Balkan and Slavic States, to Austria and Germany. Along the way, they converted to Christianity. Also, along the way, they acquired a wide range of stereotypes including "accomplices to the Crucifixion," thieves, practitioners of the magic arts, beggars, etc. Their itenerant lifestyles, non-conventional behaviors and mystical image brought them under governmental suspicion from the early Middle Ages on. They were fairly consistently defined as "stateless" wanderers, a threat to the moral order and a burden upon society.
The Evolution of Nazi Policy Toward the Gypsies
The Nazis are not entirely responsible for the policies that came to be formulated with regard to the Sinta and Roma from 1933 to 1945. In fact, they inherited a set of legal formulations and policies from the post World War I era. By 1926 Bavaria had passed the Law for the Combating of Gypsies, Travellers and the Workshy (literally, the work-shy), requiring the Rom to produce documentation of regular paid employment. Failure to do so was punishable by up to two years in the workhouse.
In the final analysis, it was not legal precedent but racial law which emerged as the major determinant of Nazi policy. With the centralization of police functions in Germany after Hitler's ascendancy to power in 1932, the political persecution of "enemies of the Reich" also became centralized. By 1936, Himmler had established the Reich Central Office for the Fight Against the Gypsy Nuisance. Utilizing the existing laws (Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Progeny and the Law Against Dangerous Habitual Criminals, both passed in 1933), the Rom were routinely arrested and sterilized.
The major problem, however, was to determine who was a "Gypsy." It must be remembered that there are a several groups within the ethnic category "Romani people" and that not all of these groups call themselves by the same name and they speak different languages. There was a general belief in Germany, even among ranking party officials, including Himmler himself, who believed that there were "pure Gypsies" who were most likely Aryan and many "part-Gypsies who were, therefore, part German. As Helen Fein tells us:
Gypsies were later labeled as asocials by the 1937 Laws against Crime, regardless of whether they had been charged with any unlawful acts. Two hundred Gypsie men were then selected by quota and incarcerated in Buchenwald concentration camp. By May 1938, SS Reichsfuehrer Himmler established the Central Office for Fighting the Gypsy Menace, which defined the question as `a matter of race,' discriminating pure Gypsies from part Gypsies as Jews were discriminated, and ordering their registration. In 1939, resettlement of Gypsies was put under Eichmann's jurisdiction along with that of the Jews.
But, how to tell the pure from the hybrid -- this question presented something of a problem for race-conscious Nazis. At this point, "medical science" entered the picture, largely in the person of Dr. Robert Ritter at the University of Teubingen. Ritter was not really a medical doctor, but a psychologist who had been researching the question of "criminal biology." It must be remembered that the emergent field of criminology from the late 1800's to the early 1900's focused on the genetic/biological foundations of human behavior. It was here that Ritter discovered an area to establish himself as one of Nazi Germany's leading "scientific experts" on race.
Ritter's explanation of how the Gypsies came to be of "inferior blood" is a startling example of science driven by ideology. The Gypsies who left India in the 10th century, Ritter argued, were pure Aryans. However, as they migrated westward and intermingled with inferior races -- e.g., in Persia, Armenia, the Slavic countries -- they lost their pure Aryan characteristics. The inferior blood gave them racial characteristics which predispose them to a set of asocial and criminal tendencies. He recommended the segregation of all gypsies and the sterilization of those who were of obviously impure strains. Ritter's research came to the attention of Himmler and, by mid-summer, 1937, he called for a careful evaluation of the research on the Rom.
In September 1939, Reinhard Heydrich organized an official conference of racial policy. The conference was held in Berlin on September 21. While the primary concern of the meeting was to plan the systematic deportation of Jews to Poland, it was also decided relocate 30,000 German Gypsies. In preparation for that deportation, the conference called for the segregation of Gypsies in special camps. While the deportation of Gypsies took a back seat to the deportation of Jews and the desired 30,000 was not immediately achieved, several thousand were deported.
At this point it is important to remember that on September 1, 1939, Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland. Under Heydrich's command, the Einsatzgruppen, or mobile killing units followed the regular Wehrmacht troops into Poland. Their assigned task was to eliminate political criminals, asocials, undesirables, communists -- anyone who posed a security threat to the Reich.
It is not known how many [Gypsies] were killed by the Einsatzgruppen charged with speedy extermination by shooting. For the sake of efficiency Gypsies were also shot naked, facing their pre-dug graves. According to the Nazi experts, shooting Jews was easier, they stood still, `while the Gypies cry out, howl, and move constantly, even when they are already standing on the shooting ground. Some of them even jumped into the ditch before the volley and pretended to be dead.'(Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961:439
According to Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide, 1979:
In 1939, resettlement of Gypsies was put under Eichmann's jurisdiction along with that of the Jews. Gypsies were forbidden to move freely and were concentrated in encampments with Germany in 1939, later (1941) transformed into fenced ghettos, from which they would be seized for transport by the criminal police (aided by dogs) and dispatched to Auschwitz in February 1943. During May 1940, about 3,100 were sent to Jewish ghettos in the Government-General: others may have been added to Jewish transports from Berlin, Vienna, and Prague to Nisko, Poland (the sight of an aborted reservation to which Jews were deported). These measures were taken against Gypsies who had no claim to exemption because of having an Aryan spouse or having been regularly employed for five years.
On December 16 1942, Himmler ordered the deportation of all Gypsies to Auschwitz. This is the official beginning of a "Final Solution" to the Gypsy Nuisance. At Auschwitz, the Gypsies were held in Camp B IIe. This is the designation for the larger Camp at Birkenau. Many were used in Joseph Mengele's medical experimentation, others were used in the German Air Force tests on reactions to extreme freezing temperatures, thousands were sent to the gas chambers. Similar fates for Gypsies are reported at Treblinka, Chelmo and other extermination centers.
In addition to the approximately 6 million Jews who were the targets of a complete annihilation policy in the Nazi Holocaust were an estimated 5.5 million "enemies of the German State" who were murdered under equally inhumane circumstances -- criminals and asocials, the insane, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, political criminals such as communists and socialists, and Gypsies. Estimates of the number of Gypsies murdered run from a high of 500,000 to 600,000 (Jan Yoors, 1971:34) to a more conservative figure of 200,000 (Martin Gilbert, 1981,). There has been some debate regarding the inclusion of Gypsies under the subject of the Holocaust since they were persecuted prior to the Holocaust as political criminals and as "asocial" (cf. Burleigh and Wipperman, 1991). However, there has never been any question regarding the genocidal nature of Nazi policy toward this group. The question seems to be whether it was ever the official policy or intent of the Nazis to completely exterminate them any more than it was Nazi policy to exterminate all Poles (cf., Landau, 1994:117). There is some evidence that prior to 1942, Himmler favored sparing a couple of gypsy tribes which had been defined as "pure gypsies." However, by December 16, 1942, he ordered all gypsies in Germany deported to Auschwitz.
Their inclusion here is based upon the following facts:
Even though they are not specifically mentioned in theNuremberg Laws of 1935 as non-Aryan, by 1937, those statutes were extended to include them and to define them as unassimilable with Aryan blood.
The deportation of Gypsies was placed under Himmler's authority in 1942 and he ordered their extermination.
Who Are the Gypsies?
It is not only in the highly romanticized versions of popular lore that the "Gypsies" are shrouded in mystery; scientific accounts of their origins reflect some degree of uncertainty as well. It appears that the term "gypsy" is a corruption of "Egyptian," reflecting the widespread belief during the Middle Ages that these people were of Egyptian origin. It is most likely that they originated in northern India, in the Punjab region. Another interpretation claims that they acquired the name "gypsies" from their settlement in the Greek Peloponneseus near a village named "Gyppe" (see Burleigh and Wippermann, 1991:331n). The people fairly consistently call themselves Rom, or Roma.
What is known about the Sinti and Roma is that they arrived in Germany in the late 1400's after a series of migrations which brought them from northern India, through Persia, Asia Minor and Greece, the Balkan and Slavic States, to Austria and Germany. Along the way, they converted to Christianity. Also, along the way, they acquired a wide range of stereotypes including "accomplices to the Crucifixion," thieves, practitioners of the magic arts, beggars, etc. Their itenerant lifestyles, non-conventional behaviors and mystical image brought them under governmental suspicion from the early Middle Ages on. They were fairly consistently defined as "stateless" wanderers, a threat to the moral order and a burden upon society.
The Evolution of Nazi Policy Toward the Gypsies
The Nazis are not entirely responsible for the policies that came to be formulated with regard to the Sinta and Roma from 1933 to 1945. In fact, they inherited a set of legal formulations and policies from the post World War I era. By 1926 Bavaria had passed the Law for the Combating of Gypsies, Travellers and the Workshy (literally, the work-shy), requiring the Rom to produce documentation of regular paid employment. Failure to do so was punishable by up to two years in the workhouse.
In the final analysis, it was not legal precedent but racial law which emerged as the major determinant of Nazi policy. With the centralization of police functions in Germany after Hitler's ascendancy to power in 1932, the political persecution of "enemies of the Reich" also became centralized. By 1936, Himmler had established the Reich Central Office for the Fight Against the Gypsy Nuisance. Utilizing the existing laws (Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Progeny and the Law Against Dangerous Habitual Criminals, both passed in 1933), the Rom were routinely arrested and sterilized.
The major problem, however, was to determine who was a "Gypsy." It must be remembered that there are a several groups within the ethnic category "Romani people" and that not all of these groups call themselves by the same name and they speak different languages. There was a general belief in Germany, even among ranking party officials, including Himmler himself, who believed that there were "pure Gypsies" who were most likely Aryan and many "part-Gypsies who were, therefore, part German. As Helen Fein tells us:
Gypsies were later labeled as asocials by the 1937 Laws against Crime, regardless of whether they had been charged with any unlawful acts. Two hundred Gypsie men were then selected by quota and incarcerated in Buchenwald concentration camp. By May 1938, SS Reichsfuehrer Himmler established the Central Office for Fighting the Gypsy Menace, which defined the question as `a matter of race,' discriminating pure Gypsies from part Gypsies as Jews were discriminated, and ordering their registration. In 1939, resettlement of Gypsies was put under Eichmann's jurisdiction along with that of the Jews.
But, how to tell the pure from the hybrid -- this question presented something of a problem for race-conscious Nazis. At this point, "medical science" entered the picture, largely in the person of Dr. Robert Ritter at the University of Teubingen. Ritter was not really a medical doctor, but a psychologist who had been researching the question of "criminal biology." It must be remembered that the emergent field of criminology from the late 1800's to the early 1900's focused on the genetic/biological foundations of human behavior. It was here that Ritter discovered an area to establish himself as one of Nazi Germany's leading "scientific experts" on race.
Ritter's explanation of how the Gypsies came to be of "inferior blood" is a startling example of science driven by ideology. The Gypsies who left India in the 10th century, Ritter argued, were pure Aryans. However, as they migrated westward and intermingled with inferior races -- e.g., in Persia, Armenia, the Slavic countries -- they lost their pure Aryan characteristics. The inferior blood gave them racial characteristics which predispose them to a set of asocial and criminal tendencies. He recommended the segregation of all gypsies and the sterilization of those who were of obviously impure strains. Ritter's research came to the attention of Himmler and, by mid-summer, 1937, he called for a careful evaluation of the research on the Rom.
In September 1939, Reinhard Heydrich organized an official conference of racial policy. The conference was held in Berlin on September 21. While the primary concern of the meeting was to plan the systematic deportation of Jews to Poland, it was also decided relocate 30,000 German Gypsies. In preparation for that deportation, the conference called for the segregation of Gypsies in special camps. While the deportation of Gypsies took a back seat to the deportation of Jews and the desired 30,000 was not immediately achieved, several thousand were deported.
At this point it is important to remember that on September 1, 1939, Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland. Under Heydrich's command, the Einsatzgruppen, or mobile killing units followed the regular Wehrmacht troops into Poland. Their assigned task was to eliminate political criminals, asocials, undesirables, communists -- anyone who posed a security threat to the Reich.
It is not known how many [Gypsies] were killed by the Einsatzgruppen charged with speedy extermination by shooting. For the sake of efficiency Gypsies were also shot naked, facing their pre-dug graves. According to the Nazi experts, shooting Jews was easier, they stood still, `while the Gypies cry out, howl, and move constantly, even when they are already standing on the shooting ground. Some of them even jumped into the ditch before the volley and pretended to be dead.'(Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961:439
According to Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide, 1979:
In 1939, resettlement of Gypsies was put under Eichmann's jurisdiction along with that of the Jews. Gypsies were forbidden to move freely and were concentrated in encampments with Germany in 1939, later (1941) transformed into fenced ghettos, from which they would be seized for transport by the criminal police (aided by dogs) and dispatched to Auschwitz in February 1943. During May 1940, about 3,100 were sent to Jewish ghettos in the Government-General: others may have been added to Jewish transports from Berlin, Vienna, and Prague to Nisko, Poland (the sight of an aborted reservation to which Jews were deported). These measures were taken against Gypsies who had no claim to exemption because of having an Aryan spouse or having been regularly employed for five years.
On December 16 1942, Himmler ordered the deportation of all Gypsies to Auschwitz. This is the official beginning of a "Final Solution" to the Gypsy Nuisance. At Auschwitz, the Gypsies were held in Camp B IIe. This is the designation for the larger Camp at Birkenau. Many were used in Joseph Mengele's medical experimentation, others were used in the German Air Force tests on reactions to extreme freezing temperatures, thousands were sent to the gas chambers. Similar fates for Gypsies are reported at Treblinka, Chelmo and other extermination centers.
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