This is my third attempt to write this piece. Hopefully this time I will complete it.
I have researched the details as widely as possible on the Internet, but some conclusions are impressions which I will consider amending in the light of evidence to the contrary. Facts are what always matter to me, not half-truths or deceptions - or blatant lies (which include total recreations of history for political or religious purposes).
REFERENCE WORKS
Actually "influences" would be a better word. These are the things that I read that got me started in this area - many years ago!
1. A Pictorial History of Nazi Germany by Erwin Leiser - English edition published in 1962 by Pelican Books. Leiser was born to a Jewish family in Berlin in 1923. His family fled to Sweden in 1938, where he obtained a university degree, became a journalist, worked in television, and later became a documentary film maker. He produced the award-winning film Mein Kampf in 1960 - most of the pictures in the book came from that film. Split into 14 parts, I found 12 parts of this film available on YouTube last year (not sure where the other two went). In German, the sound was not all that amazing and being black and white archive film, it has the occasional glitch. Not sure that if it is still there, but for students of 20th century history it is interesting.
Most of the facts reflect the historical details that you will find elsewhere written by accredited historians (Hugh Trevor-Roper, Alan Bullock usw), though having started from a German perspective Leiser's take on events is occasionally different from that of his Anglo-American counterparts. But latter-day Nazi sympathisers will not like the content (all well and good IMHO, perhaps having the facts stuffed down their throats is a recommended cure for their illness!).
I still have this book available to me. It was a starting point. As part of my modern Renaissance Man leanings (linguist, computer scientist, mathematician and with considerable knowledge of international and national politics, economics, geography, and an overview of geology and natural sciences and as much as I will ever need to know about all the world's significant religions, which the geological and natural science knowledge automatically blows out of the water), I have researched 20th century history in some detail with a particular emphasis on the (often unfairly maligned IMHO) Weimar Republic, and the resistance movements within Germany during the Third Reich. So my views are not limited to what I have seen from Leiser's works.
2. My Life with the Gypsies (original German title - "Mein Schicksal waren die Zigeuner") by Marta Adler. First published in German in 1960 (I believe), English version dated, I think, from 1963. Please do not take the dates as completely accurate. Written by a non-Romany who went to live in, and married into the Romany communities. The book covers the period from the 1930s to 1950s and sees the events affecting their communities from an insider's perspective. It is many years since I picked this book up from my local library in England and read it, so I will not quote from it chapter and verse. What purpose it served though was to reveal to me facts of which I was totally unaware previously.
RACIAL PURIFICATION AND SOCIAL MISFITS
The role of the Jewish people in Germany prior to the rise of the Nazis is often misunderstood. Many of them did not live in isolated ghettos, mixing only in their own communities and being outsiders looking in. Many lived in the mainstream community, had lifestyles not dissimilar to the "ethnic Germans" and generally contributed to the everyday business and social life of the areas where they lived.
As an example one can quote Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank, who was a businessman in Frankfurt, and had served as an officer in the German Army during the First World War. There had been inter-marriage, and it is well nigh possible that people defined as "Jewish" by the Nazis (having one grandparent who was Jewish in the case of "Mischling Second Degree" - see the Nuremburg Laws of 1935) may actually have been unaware of the fact. Anyone who had renounced their commitment to Judaism and lived as, say, a Christian was also still subject to the racial laws.
If there were many Jewish people living among the mainstream social population of Germany at the time, this was not so much the case for the Romany people. Some had settled into the community, taken on "normal" jobs and lived "normal" lives, but they were mainly perceived as a nomadic people living in caravans. Ethnically not Germanic, and subject to the Gypsy Laws of 1899 in Bavaria and in 1922 in Baden, in 1928 they became subject to permanent police surveillance throughout the entire country.
Their (stereotypical) reputation as thieves, vagabonds, con artists, beggars and individuals prone to general anti-social tendencies was already well established before the rise of the Nazis to power. Works had already appeared from the likes of Binding and Hoche in 1920 and Günther in 1928 also locating them among the "racially impure" and as worthless individuals who had no place within German society.
Similar laws and a similar reputation were also widespread in other European countries and the impact of this, with the Nazi invasions of much of the rest of Europe, was to be noted elsewhere.
GYPSY, ROMANY, ROMA AND SINTI
Before continuing, a quick run through of terminology. The term "Gypsy" is often now seen as pejorative, and is not widely used. "Roma" has become the standard terminology for the people although "Romany" and "Romani" are still used as alternatives in the English speaking world.
The Sinti are seen as a sub-group principally based in German-speaking countries (though also to be found in Italy and Spain) with some different cultural features.
PERSECUTION UNDER NATIONAL SOCIALISM
Already in 1933 a policy of sterilisation was introduced where a number of Roma were concerned. In 1935 the Nuremburg Laws were also applied to them as was the case with the Jewish people. Following that the path downwards was to follow that of the Jews. Essentially they were "Untermenschen" with few rights, and the path towards their intended extermination opened by the Nazis.
The opening of the Racial Hygiene Research Centre in Berlin in 1936 was seen as particularly aimed at the Romany population, and throughout the next 8 to 9 years some medical experimentation, which should be seen as beyond barbaric, was carried out on them - notably on children. One of the major villains in this respect was the notorious Doctor Josef Mengele.
Many Sinti and Roma from throughout Europe were based in what was known as the "Gypsy Camp" at the concentration camp at Auschwitz. On the 2nd and 3rd of August, 1944, this area was closed and some 2,900 individuals were sent to die in the gas chambers. To the nay-sayers my comment is that there is far too much evidence that this did occur, and it should well be noted that the Nazis made quite clear that the extermination of the Roma was one of their objectives.
Because of their nomadic nature it is difficult to tie down the exact number of Romany people who died at the hands of the Nazi regime, but estimates that I have seen vary between 270,000 and 1,500,000. Whatever their shortcomings or antisocial behaviour, extermination in this manner and on this scale is far worse than "unacceptable", way beyond "barbaric" - in fact finding a word to describe it is extremely difficult.
As an atheist, I do not pray to any God - obviously. As a non-Roma (rather a descendant of Viking stock), I have no attachment directly to these people. But as a humanitarian who can understand (if not appreciate) the horror inflicted upon these people, I shall hold my own minute of silence on the anniversary of both those days, and I would ask my readers to do the same.
SETTELA STEINBACH
In over 250 postings on this blog, I have never before added a picture to any item that I have written. I live in hope that I am not infringing any copyright in this respect. I will with extremely great reluctance remove the image if informed that I must.
I first saw this image in Leiser's book nearly 50 years ago. It is in many ways an iconic picture of the Holocaust. A young, frightened girl staring out of a cattle truck before being transported to her death in Auschwitz.
For many years people thought that she was Jewish (not that, I would hasten to add, the tragedy of the Jewish people in this respect was any less!). In 1994 the Dutch journalist, Aad Wagenaar (who had been searching for the information about her), discovered her name - Anna Maria (known as "Settela") Steinbach. She was a Sinti girl, originally from Buchten in the Netherlands, who was picked up in Eindhoven with most of the rest of her family.
At the time that this happened, she was nine years old. The headscarf is not a religious symbol. She had had her head shaved to remove any head lice that she might have had (remember the times when children lived in such disgusting conditions that they had to be deloused?).
The cattle truck, a demeaning, disgusting way to transport any human beings, was the regular means of transporting people to the camps. Sanitation, comfort, dignity? Forget it!
That anyone could think that a girl like this could pose anything resembling any danger in any way to anybody?
As I said in yesterday's piece - words fail me!
POSTSCRIPT - AND WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
First what seems like a digression:
Anyone who saw the recent European football (North American = soccer) championships, EURO 2012, cannot fail to have admired the wonderful skill of the Italian midfield player, Andrea Pirlo. He is a Sinti. As is his father who runs a metal trading company that has a turnover of 2 billion Euro a year. Not exactly penniless nomads begging in the street, either of them.
I have spent a lot of time on this blog taking digs at stereotypes. At times it is very easy to get angry at people who depend upon stereotyping to make a point.
It is nonetheless the case that it is quite a commonplace occurrence. And that commonplace occurrence has at times a capacity to raise its ugly head in politics. There are political parties in Eastern Europe, most notoriously in Hungary, in particular where racism against the Roma is one of their platforms. Even in Western Europe there are instances of convenient showboating where these people are concerned (see Sarkozy in France in 2010).
The Roma culture is not easy to like for many of us. Some of their people we would well choose to avoid. But we should be capable of accommodating them within a true democratic culture. There are laws by which they too must learn to abide.
But the lessons of the 1940s should not be forgotten. We have learned to accept the rights of the Jewish people. We should learn to accept the rights of the Sinti and Roma as well and never allow a repeat of the atrocities described above to occur.
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