Porajmos – History of Sorts

Eyewitness Accounts of the Porajmos

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 up during an informal conversation in 1993.

Like the Jews, the Roma were also persecuted for centuries in Germany.

The first German anti-Romani law was issued in 1416 when they were accused of being foreign spies, carriers of the plague, and traitors to Christendom.

In 1725, Friedrich Wilhelm I condemned all those 18 years and older to be
hanged.

By 1922, all Romanies in Baden were to be photographed and fingerprinted. The Bavarian parliament issued a new law “to combat Gypsies, nomads and idlers.” The Provincial Criminal Commission endorsed another law dated 16 July 1926, aimed at controlling the “Gypsy Plague.”

Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis murdered an estimated 500,000 Roma-Sinti people.

Below are two eyewitness accounts of survivors. The term Gypsy is used in the statement, and I know some people might find this offensive, but it is in the context of the time. It is also a term which is still used by Romani people themselves.

Hermine Horvath
Mrs Horvath gave this interview because she wished her sufferings to be recorded for posterity.

She is a Gypsy but came from a respectable artisan family who had settled in Jabing (Burgenland). When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, her father was taken to Dachau, and her mother and 6 young siblings were sent to work. Mrs Horvath, aged 13, worked for the Ortsgrupppenleiter at Gross Petersdorf, who exploited her cruelly. When he tried to seduce her, she fled to Rechnitz. In March 1943, she was ordered to return home for registration, and two days later, she, her mother and sisters, with a 3-year-old brother, were sent to Birkenau.

At first, they were housed in stables without blankets, food or water. Later, they were given the usual starvation diet, and then, after being tattooed, they were allocated to various Arbeitskommandos. Gypsies were given the heaviest work, and only the German-speaking Gypsies were kept alive at least for some time. Foreign (Serbian) Gypsies were gassed straight away. When typhoid broke out, Mrs Horvath’s mother died. Mrs Horvath was taken to the Hospital Block, where 9-13 patients had to share a bunk. Food and water were practically non-existent, but patients were given some sweet tea and tablets. Mrs Horvath noticed that all who partook of them died soon afterwards.

Mrs Horvath was saved by a Polish doctor who repeatedly succeeded in eliminating her name from the lists for the gas chambers. On the days of Blocksperre, no one was allowed out, and the air was heavy with the smell of burnt human flesh. On one such occasion, Mrs Horvath saw people being burnt alive in a large pyre outside the crematorium. She has been suffering from epileptic fits ever since. When Mrs Horvath was selected with other young women for medical experiments—she tried to escape but was caught and brutally punished. Owing to the fact that Mrs Horvath had a friend who was in the German Army, she finally managed to get sent to the Ravensbrück Camp with her sister. She had to work for Siemens & Halske. While a supervisor there sometimes gave her some food, her sister died of starvation.

Shortly before Ravensbrück was to be closed down, Mrs Horvath rallied her last strength to be passed as fit for work and was thus included in a march to another camp. After the march, she escaped and went back to her hometown.

See related report P.III.h. (Mauthausen) No. 794 for further information. Mrs Horvath died on 10 March 1958 at age 33.

Julius Hodosi
“It was the hardest time of my life. It’s hard for me to remember. I would like to forget…”

My home is in Burgenland, where the majority of Austrian Gypsies lived. After the annexation of Austria, we heard different things about Nazi racial persecution. Many people believed they could escape this fate by registering voluntarily for the German army. Me too.

The captain of my Air Force unit liked me. When the order came to expel all Gypsies from the army, he wrote to Goering. The response was that I could stay if the captain thought it was justifiable. But for the local NSDAP^[1] group of my hometown, it was shameful to have a Gypsy in the army. They complained about it, so the captain wrote to Hitler. Hitler answered briefly, “When it’s the local NSDAP group’s wish, you have to expel him.”

So I took off the uniform and went back to my hometown. One night, the SS^[2] came into the village. They came with trucks and randomly loaded entire families. That’s why almost all the Gypsies hastily left the village. I moved to Gisshübel near Vienna and lived there in a subtenancy.

My little brother, who still went to school, was expelled. A Gypsy wasn’t an adequate member of society.

In 1941, my wife and I were arrested by the Gestapo[3] in Gisshübel. We went to the Lackenbach reception camp in Burgenland. In this camp, we got a foretaste of what was in store. The SS beat us. The food was horrible. I did the only thing possible and tried to flee. In fact, my wife and I were able to escape.

Together, we hid in Vienna and lived as so-called—submarine boats. We were not registered and didn’t get food cards. Because we had no money, I had to look for a job. That was very dangerous, but I had no choice. A coal trader was happy to get me as a delivery man because it was difficult to find male employees at this time. But it happened as I had foreseen. My cover was blown, and I was arrested by the Gestapo again. For three weeks, I was in Rossauerlände prison. During a hearing, the Gestapo official Schreiner said literally, “We will destroy you like cats!”

At home, I had a wife and two little children. Two girls, aged one and two years. I didn’t know if I would see them again. But when I was on the transport to Auschwitz, the Gestapo brought my wife and the children to the station. Together, we rode to the Birkenau Extermination Camp.

The transport was an agony. Penned up, without food, without water, and without light, we rode into the unknown. Finally, when the wagons opened, the SS received us with blows and bloodhounds—we were at our destination.

At that moment, we stopped being humans. We were just numbers. All that we had was taken from us. All of us (the women and children) had our heads shaved. All of us, my little girls too, were tattooed with numbers. Then, we were sent into the so-called entrance barrack.

We were in this barrack for about one week until we were called to different commandos. On the fifth day, we saw that there were more terrible things than getting almost nothing to eat. 300 people from Burgenland were selected for the gasification and immediately gassed. The SS visibly revelled in the agony of the people.

I came with my wife to the commando ”earthworks.” Amongst other places, we laid rails to the crematories.

Every day from 9–10, there was the so-called—punishment work. In this hour, we had to do work on the double. When someone fell down with a heavy barrow or tippler, they battered him to death immediately. So, we lost 50–60 people daily. In the morning, the SS whispered to the Capo^[4]the number of people who should not return, and the Capo tried to fulfil this order.

For all children, the camp was certain death. There was no nourishing food, no milk, nothing a developing child needs for their body. In addition to that—the uncertain life. No minute were you safe. We had to muster in the night for hours— little children too—which made hounded, tortured beings of us. Very often, the drunken SS made fun of us. They lined us up and selected those who had to go to the gas. Sometimes it was true, sometimes not.

During this time, I lost my two young children. They literally died of hunger.
The food was the following: 5 people would receive daily—1 army bread, and every prisoner—1 spoon of marmalade, ½ kg swede and sometimes 50 grams of ham and 20 grams of margarine. There were extra portions, but they were always for a select purpose. The result of the distribution led very often to affrays. There were always people killed. The hunger was enormous.

In addition came epidemics of typhus, malaria, mange, etc. The sick people were gassed. So they reduced our number from 24,000 to 7,000 within one year.

1944, in Birkenau and as I heard in Lackenbach (Burgenland), they selected (especially) dark-skinned Gypsies (men and women) for transports to Bergen-Belsen. They were experimented on to learn how long a man could survive without food and drink.

At the end of this year, they organised further transports. They separated people who were fit for the military and such young women and men who agreed to be part of sterilisation experiments in the hope of freedom. They were promised release from the camp. In truth, it was very different. 8 days after such an operation, which was done without anaesthetic, they had to go back to work. Many perished because of that.

I became part of the so-called Bewährungstruppe and was installed at the front near Cottbus on 12 April 1945. Those who did not die during the fighting were killed by the SS from behind. From 4,000 men, just 700 survived. We were happy to get into Russian imprisonment. Later, I heard that none of the 4,000 who stood in Birkenau lived anymore. They were all gassed.

__________
It is just so important that the stories of all Holocaust victims are heard. Only when we educate ourselves—we can tackle hate.

Sources

Click to access OPRORRAJMOS-ian-hancock.pdf

Click to access roma-holocaust-factsheet%20(3).pdf

https://www.testifyingtothetruth.co.uk/viewer/fulltext/105889/1/eng/

https://www.testifyingtothetruth.co.uk/viewer/metadata/105947/1/eng/

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Settela Steinbach

(Updated May 13, 2024)

I have written about Settela before. She was also known as Anna Maria Steinbach. One of the reasons I want to highlight the sad story of Settela is because there is a chance she may be related to me, be it via marriage or one of my cousins. Yet, there is another clear indication of how near the Holocaust still is. She was a Dutch girl murdered by the Nazis in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Initially identified as a Dutch Jew, but in 1994 it emerged she was actually Sinti. Now through this post, I will be using the name gypsies, because that is what the group of Romani and Sinti were called during World War II, and indeed that is how they still often refer to themselves.

Settela was born in 1934 in Born—other sources say Buchten or Geleen, but that area in part of Limburg in the Netherlands is quite small and within a cycle distance of each other. In her youth, she travelled through the Limburg countryside with her nine brothers and sisters.

Susteren was one of the permanent locations of the Steinbach family—on the Baakhoverweg, on the slope of the road, next to the orchard of de Zeute, where the family caravans resided. Local residents remember that the children of the Steinbachs regularly came to ask for water. On summer evenings, they could hear the melodious sounds of the family’s violins in the village.

In 1943, the Steinbach family moved to the well-known caravan camp ‘De Zwaaikom’ in Eindhoven. The camp, built in 1929, was designated by the government after the travel ban in the summer of 1943 as one of the central camps for gypsies.

Early Tuesday morning, 16 May 1944, Settela and her family were awakened by banging on the trailer and screams. It was a raid. The police officers and land rangers had a list of the gypsies staying at the caravan camp and carried out the raid. Eventually, 21 (especially women and children) were driven out of the camp (via the police station) to Eindhoven station. Some men were arrested a week earlier and taken to Camp Amersfoort. So was the fate of Settela’s father.

At Centraal Station, Settela had to board a passenger train with the other arrested Sinti and Roma, which travelled to Den Bosch, where an additional 51 people boarded. It then continued the journey north to Camp Westerbork around 4 o’clock. A few days later, they deported her to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Right before the doors were about to close, she stared through the opening at a passing dog or the German soldiers. Rudolf Breslauer, a Jewish prisoner in Westerbork, who was shooting a movie on orders of the German camp commander, filmed the image of Settela’s fearful glance staring out of the wagon. Crasa Wagner was in the same wagon and heard Settela’s mother call her name and warn her to pull her head out of the opening. There was something peculiar about the car she was in. She noticed it had vertical planks, in contrast to most of the other rail cars of the 19 May transport. Most cars had planks arranged horizontally. Why that is, or its importance, I do not know.

On 22 May, the Dutch Romani, among them Steinbach, arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau. They were registered and taken to the Romani section. Romani, fit to work, were dispatched to the ammunition factories in Germany. The remaining 3,000 Romani met their fate at the gas chambers to their deaths in mid-summer 1944. Steinbach, her mother, two brothers, two sisters, aunt, two nephews and niece were part of this latter group. Of the Steinbach family, only the father, Heinrich ‘Moeselman’ survived. He died in 1946 and was buried in the cemetery of Maastricht.

After the war, the image of Settela became famous. She was known as “The Girl with the Headscarf” and was assumed to be Jewish. Her name and Sinti identity were established in 1994 by Dutch journalist Aad Wagenaar. Settela became a symbol of the Roma and Sinti genocide during the Holocaust. At age 9, the Nazis murdered her at the Camp in August 1944. Based on the evidence available to date, historians estimate that the Germans and their allies killed between 250,000 and 500,000 European Roma during World War II.

Seventy-nine years ago, Settela was 9 when she died in 1944. She would have been 88 today if she lived. Who knows what her future would have held if she had been allowed to live? She was born so near where I grew up—I could have easily bumped into her.

A poem about the Porajmos

In shadows deep, they wandered free,
Their laughter danced with melody,
Beneath the moon, they sang their song,
Yet soon would come a night so long.

Across the land, a darkness spread,
Where hatred reigned and reason fled,
Their wagons halted, spirits worn,
As evil whispered, death was sworn.

In camps of sorrow, they were led,
Where chains of cruelty left them bled,
Their culture, language, torn apart,
By hearts of stone and poisoned dart.

Yet in the midst of darkest night,
A flame of hope, however slight,
For even as the fires burned,
Their spirit strong, they never turned.

With courage forged in trials dire,
They kindled flames of fierce desire,
To rise again, from ashes grey,
And tell the world of yesterday.

For though the scars may still remain,
Their voices echo, not in vain,
In memory’s embrace, they stand,
A testament to love’s command.

So let us nevermore forget,
The lives that time would soon regret,
In reverence, we honor those,
Whose stories whisper, never close.

Sources

https://www.yadvashem.org/blog/remembering-settela.html

Settela Steinbach: The Girl with the Headscarf

https://westerborkportretten.nl/sinti-en-romaportretten/settela-steinbach

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/genocide-of-european-roma-gypsies-1939-1945

The Persecution of the Roma and Sinti in the Netherlands

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 come to be known as the Porajmos. Before the Second World War, approximately 4,500 Sinti and Roma lived in the Netherlands. From July 1943 Sinti and Roma were no longer allowed to travel in the Netherlands. On 16 May 1944, raids took place: 578 Sinti, Roma and were arrested by mainly Dutch police officers and taken to Camp Westerbork.

Three days later, on 19 May 1944, 245 Sinti and Roma were deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Most had yet to turn 18. Only 31 of them would survive the war.

But as with the Jewish population, the persecution of the Roma and Sinti was gradual.

In addition to the compulsory registration of Jews in 1941, all Roma and Sinti were required to be registered. On 29 March 1943, the situation for the Roma and Sinti changes completely. The head of the SS and German police in the Netherlands, Hans Alvin Reuter, wanted to put an end to ‘nomadic life’ in the Netherlands. About 335 Roma and Sinti horses are confiscated during roundups. The horses come into the ownership of the Wehrmacht or are sold by the Nazis to farmers.

Sinti and Roma had to live in assembly camps outside cities from 22 June 1943, such as near The Hague or Eindhoven. Ordered by the Nazis, the caravans were pulled together here and the Sinti and Roma concentrated. From that moment on, the Sinti and Roma were forced to live in the assembly camps or in a house.

The travel ban for Sinti and Roma, or the towing ban, was introduced on 1 July 1943. The wheels of the caravans were confiscated or had to be removed.

On 14 May, a telegram arrived at the police presidents in the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Arnhem and Groningen. According to the report, “all persons residing in the Netherlands, who possess the characteristic of gipsies, must be immediately be transferred to Camp Westerbork by personnel of the Dutch police”.

The national raid took place on 16 May 1944, carried out by members of the Marechaussee, land guards and the Dutch state police.

From all over the Netherlands, Roma, Sinti and caravan dwellers come by train to the Judendurchgangslager Westerbork. Registration takes place until well into the evening. Of the 578 arrested men, women and children, some are lucky. About 200 Roma and Sinti turn out not to meet the characteristics of a gipsy and are released. Also, 50 Roma and Sinti are allowed to leave the camp, because they are in possession of a neutral passport from Switzerland, Italy or Guatemala.

All property, money, and jewellery were taken under the guise that everything will be returned. Then follows the ‘medical examination,’ ‘delousing,’ and their hair shaved off. About 245 Roma and Sinti, including at least 123 children, were locked up in secluded barracks, destitute, bald and dismayed.

On Friday 19 May 1944 the 96th train transport with overcrowded wagons leaves Westerbork. This outgoing transport, which also includes the Roma and Sinti, was filmed by the Jewish filmmaker Rudolf Breslauer (1903-1945) on behalf of the camp commander Albert Gemmeker (1907-1982) and this recording is known as the ‘Westerbork film’. From this film comes the well-known photo of Settela Steinbach, the girl with the headscarf.

The long train consists of three parts. The front section with Jewish ‘prisoners’ has Bergen-Belsen as its destination, the rest of the train Auschwitz. In the rear carriages, the 245 Sinti and Roma are locked up with one bucket of water and another bucket to relieve themselves.

On 21 May 1944, the train transport arrives in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Dutch Roma and Sinti are registered, tattooed and brought to Lagerabschnitt B II, the Zigeunerlager. It is remarkable that the families in the Zigeunerlager are allowed to stay together. People quickly become aware of the mass murders, because the Zigeunerlager is located next to the crematorium. In the gipsy camp, unimaginable unsanitary conditions prevail and many people died of typhoid fever, diarrhoea or of starvation. Selections take place in the gipsy camp between the end of May and the beginning of July 1944 and many men and women were transferred to other concentration camps.

In connection with the expected arrival of large numbers of Hungarian Jews, all Roma and Sinti who remained behind with their children were taken from the Zigeunerlager on the nights of 2-3 August 1944 and driven into the gas chambers. It is chaotic. The people, including children, understand what awaits them and yell, “murderers” and “traitors” at their German guards. Their dead bodies are burned in the open because the furnaces are out of order.

sources

https://www.brabantserfgoed.nl/page/11339/de-vervolging-van-brabantse-roma-en-sinti-tijdens-de-tweede

http://www.meeroverdeholocaust.nl/woordenlijst/sinti-en-roma