What was the "gypsy middle class", how Hitler destroyed it and why they forgot about it

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Between 1936 and 1945, the Nazis killed over 50% of European Roma. Whether they were strangled to death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, “destroyed through backbreaking labor” climbing the “ladder of death” at Mauthausen, or shot and buried in mass graves dug by their own hands in Romania - the extermination of Roma in Europe was carried out with a murderous efficiency.

The memory of the Roma genocide nearly disappeared

As a result, more than 90% of the pre-war Roma population was killed in countries such as Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania, Holland and on the territory of modern Czech Republic. Many of the Roma massacres in the east by wandering Nazi death squads, the Einsatzgruppen, have gone undocumented, which means that the full picture of Roma deaths will probably never be fully disclosed.

Europe's collective memory of the Roma genocide is short compared to the Holocaust of the Jews. Germany paid war reparations to the surviving Jews, but this was not done against the Roma, and the racist nature of the Roma genocide has been denied for decades in favor of the argument that it was provoked by the alleged antisociality and criminality of Roma.

The combination of widespread illiteracy, lack of documentation and brutal poverty and persecution of the Roma, which still continues so long after the liberation from the camps, means that the culture of anti-Roma has remained relatively unchanged from the genocide to the present day. Even among the Roma themselves, the communal memory of the extermination by the Nazis is not always part of the national or ethnic identity. Roma culture is predominantly oral, and Roma communities are less likely to retain details of horrific memories of these historical events in their songs and stories. Or, as the gypsy academic Ian Hancock puts it, "Nostalgia is a luxury for others."

Compared to European Jews, who retained many of their main middle class and elite after the end of the war, the growing Roma middle class, which existed mainly in Germany and Central Europe, was almost completely wiped out.

The almost complete absence of a Roma middle class in the postwar years contributed to the social amnesia of their genocide. The “Roma middle class” refers to Roma who are fully integrated into non-Roma society - who had documents, a higher level of income, a higher level of education, as well as a stable social position in the eyes of the general public. Compared to European Jews, who retained many of their main middle class and elite after the end of the war, the growing Roma middle class, which existed mainly in Germany and Central Europe, was almost completely wiped out.

The very idea of a gypsy middle class is probably not part of how most people are willing to see gypsies. Gypsies in most societies are by definition "lower class".

This is especially true in Britain, where the class structure is inflexible, and the dubious definition of "Jeepsie" for many is synonymous with wandering, low-skilled work and crime. Currently, there is a certain perception of the Roma elite: those who receive a status above the local community, receive a relatively high income, or work in political or public organizations. But this is the middle class only from the point of view of the Roma, it is not necessarily the middle class from the point of view of the broader, non-Roma society. It is only relatively recently that there has been a renewed increase in the number of Roma throughout Europe in “traditional” working class roles: Roma teachers, Roma police officers, Roma soldiers and Roma civil servants.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Sinti, the Roma of the German part of Central Europe, were a well-integrated part of society. Until now, Sinti retain a certain degree of isolation from other Roma groups due to their linguistic, historical and cultural integration into German society.

Nostalgia is a luxury for others

For centuries, Roma were denied access to trade associations and guilds in Western Europe, and by the twentieth century, many of them had become successful, respectable businessmen. Some Roma owned and operated cinemas; others set up rides and amusements at fairgrounds. By the end of the twenties, the number of nomadic gypsies decreased, and in German lands they were shopkeepers, postal and government employees, and officers. Their children received a complete education, and some of those who provided special services to their country even received titles of nobility.

As early as the end of the eighteenth century, the names of soldiers in the records of the Pirmasen Grenadier Regiments of Landgrave Ludwig IX include some of the oldest Sinti surnames. During World War I, many Sinti also served in the German army and were awarded for their bravery and patriotism.

Although Sinti and Roma have served in the army throughout history, including World War I, on November 26, 1937, the Reich Minister of War issued a decree prohibiting Sinti and Roma from active military service. Around the same time, Heinrich Himmler ordered the Research Department for Racial Hygiene to compile a complete register of all Roma in German territories.

In the months and years that followed, Sinti and Roma, along with Jews, were stripped of their civil rights. They were banned from using public transport, hospitals, schools and even playgrounds. In many places, they were barred from entering bars, cinemas and shops. Any new Sinti and Roma leases were banned, and existing agreements were terminated. As a result of a concerted press campaign similar to the one against Jews, Sinti and Roma were expelled from professional organizations and denied access to work. By March 1939, their national IDs had been declared invalid, and racial IDs had been issued to Roma in all German-occupied territories. Like Jews, Sinti and Roma were forced to wear identification armbands on which the word Zigeuner - "gypsy" was written.

Finally, in February 1941, the High Command of the Wehrmacht ordered the dismissal of Sinti and Roma from the army, as well as a ban on any further recruitment of "gypsies or their half-breeds."

Oswald Winter was a Sinti soldier who completed the six-month compulsory pre-army service in the Imperial Labor Service in 1939 and then joined the Wehrmacht in 1940. He served in the 190th Infantry Regiment of the 6th Army and by 1942 was awarded the Silver Assault Badge For Bravery, the Iron Cross, the Order of Honor and the Badge For Wounded.

He was wounded in the lung and received leave from the front to recuperate in Wroclaw in 1942. Upon his return, he learned that his entire family had been arrested by the Gestapo. After he informed his superiors about this, the command of the garrison sent a petition to Reichsmarshal Goering. Oswald's company commander also wrote a letter to Heinrich Himmler, in which he expressed his disbelief that Oswald was a gypsy.

This led to an appointment with the Reich General Security Office in Berlin, where Oswald informed them that he had one brother who had already been killed in action on the Russian front, and two more brothers who were still fighting in the Wehrmacht:

“In my youthful naivety, I believed in honor and that my bravery in war would be recognized in Berlin. I start to cry when I think about it now, because in fact, I still reproach myself today, I betrayed my two brothers in the Wehrmacht and could not do anything for my mother, brothers and sisters. My older sister was killed at Auschwitz. My mother, who was sent to Auschwitz via Ravensbrück with my second oldest sister, also did not survive the concentration camp. My younger brother and the daughter of my second oldest sister were forcibly sterilized at the age of 13 and 12 by doctors in Passau in 1943. One brother was sent to Auschwitz directly from the anti-aircraft artillery battery at the Munich main station in early 1943 and was sent to the suicide squad who fought against Russian troops in Birkenau near Berlin in August 1944 after the liquidation of the "gypsy camp", this battle he did not survive … The second brother was dismissed from the Wehrmacht, where he served as a tanker, immediately after my meeting with Kaltenbrunner."

Oswald was told that there was a mistake and everything would be sorted out. But when he returned to the military hospital in Wroclaw, the chief doctor informed him that he had just driven out two Gestapo officers who had come to arrest him. Oswald fled and hid in Poland and Czechoslovakia, where he lived to be liberated by the Red Army in 1945. His remaining brother also survived by hiding to survive the Nazi regime.

Most of the other Sinti who served in the Wehrmacht were unable to escape. They were deported straight from the front to Auschwitz and killed. Some arrived at the camp while still in their uniforms.

Those Roma who were most integrated into society were the easiest to register and exterminate. Like Jews, these people existed on census forms, military lists, and school files. The destruction of this Roma middle class meant that few loud voices remained to speak of the Roma genocide after 1945.

Neither Sinti nor Roma were summoned to testify at the Nuremberg Trials. There were no Roma scholars, no Roma lawyers, or government officials. No one was left to document the atrocities committed against the Roma along with the Jews - the only two peoples that were the specific target of the Nazi "Final Solution", which was designed to ensure the racial purity of the Germans.

While Jewish census data can be compared before and after the Holocaust, it is hardly possible in the case of Sinti and Roma, which means that it is extremely difficult to piece together data on the total death toll of Roma. Estimates range anywhere between 500,000 and 1.5 million. In 1939, about 30,000 people called "Gypsies" lived in what is now Germany and Austria. The total population residing in Greater Germany and its occupied territories is unknown, although scholars Donald Kenrick and Grattan Paxon have given a rough estimate of 942,000. Of the Sinti and Roma living in German Central Europe, it is believed that only 5,000 survived.

Germany paid war reparations to Jewish survivors, but not to Roma, and the racist nature of the Roma genocide has been denied for decades in favor of the argument that it was provoked by the alleged antisociality and criminality of Roma. West Germany officially recognized the Roma genocide only in 1982.

Only in recent years, with an increase in the number of well-educated Roma scholars, a greater coherence of efforts to study evidence of the Roma genocide and a steadily growing number of Roma in influential positions, the history of this tragedy is finally beginning to be fully covered.

All photographs and captions are from the German Sinti and Roma Documentation and Culture Center in Heidelberg, Germany.

Looking at photographs from the life of German gypsies in the 1930s before the start of the Nazi genocide, you understand that until the liberation from the Nazis, none or almost none of those depicted survived.