Sinti & Roma Holocaust
The Sinti and Roma Holocaust, also known by the Romani terms Porrajmos (The Devouring) or Samudaripen (The Mass Killing), was the systematic persecution and genocide of European Roma and Sinti peoples by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Like the Jewish people, the Roma and Sinti were targeted on the basis of racial ideology, with the Nazis deeming them "racially inferior" and a threat to the biological purity of the "Aryan" race. Persecution began with discriminatory laws and social exclusion, which rapidly escalated to forced sterilization, arbitrary internment in "Gypsy camps," forced labor, and mass deportation and murder.
The genocide was executed across German-occupied Europe, resulting in the murder of tens of thousands of people in mass shootings, particularly in Eastern Europe, and thousands more in the concentration and extermination camps. The most notorious killing site was Auschwitz-Birkenau, which housed a special "Gypsy family camp" (Zigeunerfamilienlager). Historians estimate that at least 250,000 to 500,000 Sinti and Roma were murdered, representing a significant portion of their total pre-war population. The scale of this tragedy was largely overlooked or marginalized in post-war history, making its formal acknowledgement and commemoration a critical ongoing effort for historical justice and human rights.
- Der Kulturverein Österreichischer Roma und Sinti- Has an exhibit on the migration of Roma to Europe
- Dokumentations- und Kulturzentrum Deutscher Sinti und Roma
- Encyclopaedia: Genocide Sinti and Roma
- European Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma
- Forgotten Victims: The Nazi Genocide of the Roma and Sinti
- Genetic studies of the Roma (Gypsies): a review
- Genocide of European Roma (Gypsies), 1939–1945 (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Encyclopedia)
- Gypsies in Germany (German Gypsies) Identity and Politics of Sinti and Roma in Germany
- Museum for Roma & Sinti
- Nazis murdered a quarter of Europe’s Roma, but history still overlooks this genocide
- Non-Jewish Victims of Persecution in Germany: Sinti and Roma (Yad Vashem - Israel's National Holocaust Memorial)
- Origins and divergence of the Roma (gypsies)
- Roma Holocaust
- ROMBASE This project is run by the University of Graz and provides information on the socio-historical situation of the Roma.
- Sinti & Roma (Victims of the Nazi Era, 1933-1945)
- Sinti and Roma
- Sinti and Roma (The Gypsies)
- Sinti und Roma- Deutschland
- The Fate of European Roma and Sinti during the Holocaust
- The genocide of the Roma and Sinti during the second world war
- The National Socialist genocide of the Sinti and Roma
- The Persecution of the Roma Is Often Left Out of the Holocaust Story
Credits
Compiled by Mark Rabideau, Opa & Professional Genealogist.