Roma-Gypsies
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Porajmos—sometimes spelt Porrajmos or Pharrajimos—means devouring or destruction—in some dialects of the Romani language, is the term for the Roma Sinti Holocaust during World War II. It was introduced by Romani scholar and political activist Ian Hancock in the early 1990s. He chose to use the term coined by Kalderash Roma when he picked it…
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This Isn’t About a Western Film: It’s About a Remarkable WWII Story When I first picked up a guitar, it was because of two towering inspirations: Django Reinhardt and Jim Croce. Django, with his captivating melodies and revolutionary style, made the strings sing in ways I could only dream of. Born in 1910 in Belgium…
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The biggest group of Holocaust victims were the Jews, an estimated six million were murdered between 1933 and 1945. The second biggest group were the Gipsies (Roma and Sinti). During World War II, it is estimated that more than 500,000 Sinti and Roma from all over Europe were murdered by the Nazis in what has…
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On 15 November 1943, Himmler ordered that Romani and “part-Romanies” were to be put “on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps.” Between 1933 and 1945, Roma and Sinti in Europe were targets of Nazi persecution. The Nazi regime, building on long-held prejudices, viewed Roma as “a-socials” (outside “normal” society) and as…
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The Roma Holocaust, also known as the Porajmos (meaning “the Devouring” in Romani) or the Samudaripen (“Mass Killing”), refers to the systematic persecution and extermination of Roma people by Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II. This genocide, part of the broader Holocaust, resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Roma…
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On May 30, 1943, the SS assigned Josef Mengele to Auschwitz, reportedly at his own request. He served as one of the camp physicians at Auschwitz-Birkenau—the largest of the Auschwitz complex—which also functioned as a primary killing center for Jews deported from across Europe. Among his various duties, Mengele was responsible for overseeing the Zigeunerlager…
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“I witnessed the most terrible thing, something which no-one else knows about in this country because no-one else is alive to remember it. One day, the Auschwitz guards brought in between 400 and 600 Roma from Germany. Many of the men were former German soldiers who had fought in Poland during the First World War.…
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The photograph above is of Celestinus Steinbach. He was born in Heerlen, the Netherlands, on February 13, 1929. The SS murdered him at Auschwitz-Birkenau on September 27, 1944. He was 15 years old. He posed for the photo when he was seven years old. Celestinus, aka Willy, was a member of the Steinbach family, a…
History of Sorts 