Echoes of the Porajmos: Romani Persecution and the Enduring Echoes of Fascism

Al Jazeera©

The pages of history, often written by the victors, carry the silent cries of the vanquished. Among these, the guttural screams of the Romani people, subjected to a genocide known as the Porajmos, remain an unsettling echo in the chambers of collective memory. This article delves into the visceral reality of the Romani Holocaust, drawing from the chilling accounts and meticulously gathered evidence within that pivotal text.

The Seeds of Annihilation: Prejudice and "Race Science"

Long before the swastika became the emblem of terror, Romani people across Europe endured deep-seated prejudice, often viewed as "dark strangers" or "vermin on an animal's body." This historical antipathy provided fertile ground for Nazi ideology, making the Romani a pre-selected target for extermination. Their nomadic lifestyle, distinctive culture, and perceived "otherness" had long fostered suspicion, a sentiment readily exploited by those seeking scapegoats. The Romani were a "small and vulnerable minority" who, unlike earlier migrating peoples, found "little space for them to establish their own homeland" in a Europe already "staked out by other races." This lack of a consolidated political or geographical base rendered them particularly exposed.

When the National Socialist party seized power in Germany in 1933, they inherited and amplified these existing biases, swiftly establishing a racial hierarchy that deemed Romani people "non-Aryan" and a "foreign element." This classification immediately placed them alongside Jews as targets for "racial separation." The groundwork for their persecution was further enabled by the Romani people's historical lack of a unified, internationally recognised political voice and their often-marginalised status within national societies, leaving them without powerful advocates when the Nazi storm gathered.

The machinery of destruction began with an academic facade. Dr Robert Ritter, at the helm of the Race Hygiene and Population Biology Research Centre, meticulously compiled genealogical tables, classifying individuals as "pure" or "part-Gypsy." This perverse "race science" was the pseudoscientific bedrock for the impending genocide. Eva Justin, another key figure, advocated for the abandonment of any attempts to educate Romani children, openly stating that "the German people do not need the multiplying weed of these immature primitives." The ultimate aim, as articulated by Ritter in 1942, was clear: the "Gypsy question can only be considered as solved when the majority of the asocial and useless part-Gypsies have been collected in large camps and set to work, and when the continued procreation of this mixed population is finally prevented." Sterilisation, a horrifying method to halt Romani reproduction, became a grim reality, with cases documented at Ravensbrück and even among Romani women married to Germans in Düsseldorf-Lierenfeld.

The Road to Auschwitz: Deportation and Ghettoisation

The initial phase involved the systematic removal of Romani people from their homes. In October 1939, Reinhard Heydrich ordered the deportation of 30,000 Romani people from Greater Germany to occupied Poland. These transports, often in cattle wagons, were brutal. Natascha Winter, a survivor, recounts being guarded in houses for fourteen days before being sent to Sobkow in Poland. The journey was fraught with hunger, cold, and disease. Petre Radita described the departure of one transport from Bucharest, noting that "many died of hunger and exposure before arriving at the river Bug in the Ukraine."

The implementation of these early deportations was facilitated by a chillingly efficient Nazi bureaucracy and the pre-existing legal frameworks that had long treated Romani people as "non-citizens." Laws were enacted and existing legislation strengthened, often "without any legal basis," even within the Nazis' perverted system. This process of isolating and stripping Romani people of their rights had been underway for centuries, making it simpler for the Nazis to implement policies that rendered them stateless and unprotected. The lack of a strong, unified state to defend Romani populations, combined with widespread public indifference or even complicity, meant that these initial steps towards annihilation met little resistance from broader society.

In Poland, Romani people were forced into Jewish ghettos, such as Lodz, often after the Jewish inhabitants had been "liquidated." Here, they faced unspeakable conditions. An eyewitness to the Lodz ghetto recalled a "bitterly cold winter," smashed windows, and a typhus epidemic. "The Germans gave no medical aid whatever, but Jewish doctors volunteered to go in and help; at least one of them, Dr Glaser, died of the disease. During the first two months, 613 people perished." The corpses, some showing signs of beatings and ropes around their necks, were collected daily.

Life and Death in the Camps: A Visceral Hell

The concentration and extermination camps became the ultimate expression of Nazi hatred. Auschwitz-Birkenau, specifically designated as a "Gypsy Camp," became a central hub of this atrocity. From February 1943, Romani people from Europe poured in, filling the thirty long stables designed for 300 to over twice that number. Conditions were dire: "large barracks that had a hole in the front and rear. Those were the doors. On single planks in large wooden boxes lay five to six persons. The sanitation was catastrophic. There was no paint on the walls. The water facilities were as good as nonexistent. The hygienic conditions were indescribable. It was a bog with horse stables without windows. The people waded up to their ankles in slime." Food was "totally inadequate," a thin "grain soup" barely sustaining life.

Medical experiments, often conducted by figures like Dr Josef Mengele, added another layer of horror. Romani prisoners, including children, were used as "guinea pigs" for experiments involving typhus injections, salt water, and even mustard gas. Mengele, known for his macabre interest in twins, saved the bodies of twelve sets of twins for autopsies after the final gassing of the Romani camp.

The mass killings were relentless. In Jasenovac, a concentration camp in Croatia, Romani people were "exterminated on or shortly after arrival," with many killed by beatings, hunger, and exhaustion. Dragutin Pudić, a camp official, would "select the prettiest Gypsy women and rape them before they were killed," and once, threw a crying two-year-old and other children in sacks, alive, into a ditch, shouting at gravediggers: "Cover them up, you idiots." Eyewitnesses at Treblinka recounted how Romani women and children were machine-gunned to death after the men had been shot in mass graves. The liquidation of the main Gypsy Camp at Auschwitz in August 1944 saw 2,800 women, children, and old men loaded onto lorries and driven to the gas chambers, resisting "as best they could" until the very end.

Resistance and the Scars of Survival

Despite the overwhelming brutality, acts of resistance emerged. In Yugoslavia, many Romani people joined the National Liberation Front (NLF), fighting as partisans. Ljatif Sucuri, a Romani man in Kosovska Mitrovica, famously leveraged his influence with the Albanian police chief to prevent the murder of Romani people in his town. Hasan Ibrahim, a mechanic, made petrol bombs for partisans and later set fire to military stores. Individuals like Vincenc Daniel escaped Auschwitz twice, hiding with the Czechs in the woods. Olga Milanović, imprisoned at Zemun, vividly remembered the "rotten potatoes and water soup" that was the daily ration.

Yet, survival came at a profound cost. The Nazi genocide left the Romani community deeply scarred. An estimated 200,000 to 500,000 Romani people perished. Beyond the sheer numbers, survivors bore the physical and psychological marks of torture, starvation, and irreversible sterilisation. The destruction of family structures, the loss of elders, and the suppression of traditions created wounds that, many years later, remain unhealed. The Porajmos is not merely a historical event; it is a living trauma that continues to shape the Romani experience, demanding remembrance, recognition, and an unwavering commitment to anti-fascist vigilance.

Post-War Betrayal: The Lingering Shadows

The liberation of the camps in 1945 did not mark the end of suffering or the dawn of justice for many Romani survivors. Gypsies Under the Swastika poignantly notes that the end of the war "has not meant the liberation of the Gypsy people from the subtler pressures of neglect and forced assimilation that just as surely threaten them with extinction as a separate people; nor, sad to say, an end to genocide in the world."

At the Nuremberg trials, while the fate of Romani people was mentioned in the indictment, there were "no Gypsy witnesses." This immediate lack of direct representation foreshadowed decades of delayed and inadequate recognition. German authorities, particularly in West Germany, "were concerned to place the date [of racial persecution] as late as possible to cut down on compensation claims." The explicit lack of recognition of the Porajmos as a genocide contributed significantly to this post-war neglect. It took until 1953 for a law allowing Romani people to claim reparations on racial grounds, and not until 1981 was a measure passed for survivors "living in hardship" who had not yet claimed, yet "many survivors... never received any compensation." The promise of "never again" remained a hollow echo for a people whose trauma was systematically overlooked.

Beyond the failures of official recognition, active persecution continued in some areas. In Slovakia, after the war, orders for the "expulsion of the Gypsies from communities... had an effect which is still being felt today." Romani families were "forced to leave their houses and make primitive camps for themselves in woods and scrubland," becoming "outcasts" whose "children denied education and the parents barely able to scrape together the necessities of life." To this day, "the Gypsies of Slovakia for the most part still live in isolated ghettos." This post-war betrayal, a continuation of marginalisation and forced assimilation, ensured that the wounds of the Porajmos festered, largely unseen and unaddressed.

The Echoes of History: Confronting the Far Right in the UK Today

The historical persecution of the Romani people under the Nazis and the subsequent post-war neglect serve as a chilling blueprint for the dangers of unchecked prejudice and the insidious rise of fascism. Today, like many nations, the United Kingdom grapples with a resurgence of far-right ideologies. These movements, often cloaked in populist rhetoric, frequently employ tactics disturbingly reminiscent of historical anti-Romani campaigns: scapegoating, demonisation of minorities, and the propagation of divisive narratives that erode social cohesion.

The historical amnesia surrounding the Porajmos leaves Romani communities particularly vulnerable. When a genocide is forgotten, the lessons it offers are lost, allowing similar patterns of discrimination and hatred to resurface unchallenged. The ongoing fight for recognition of the Romani Holocaust is not merely an academic exercise; it is a vital act of anti-fascist resistance. It illuminates how easily a society can be manipulated into dehumanising and persecuting an entire people, and it serves as a stark warning against the seemingly "subtler pressures of neglect and forced assimilation" that, as Kenrick and Puxon note, can threaten a people's very existence. Vigilance against the far right in the UK today requires a deep understanding of these historical precedents, ensuring that the cries of the forgotten are finally heard, and that no community ever again faces the unspoken atrocity of genocide.