Table Of ContentCollection
Boston Public Library
Boston * CI2tm
Collection Interface
gypsies under the Swastika
The Interface Collection, developed by the Gypsy Research Centre of the Universite
Rene Descartes, Paris, is published with the support of the European Commission.
Some Collection titles receive Council of Europe support for distribution in Central and
Eastern Europe.
The views expressed in this work are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect
those of the Editor, the Gypsy Research Centre of the Universite Rene Descartes or its
Working Groups (of historians, linguists, pedagogues...)
A New Edition of The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies.
Cover : Catherine Liegeois.
DTP : Franck Desbordes.
University of
Hertfordshire Press
University of Hertfordshire
College Lane
Hatfield
UK - Hertfordshire ALIO 9AB
Tel: + 44 1707 284654
Fax: + 44 1707 284666
© 1995
ISBN : 0 900458 658
Published 1995
Donald Kenrick
Grattan Puxon
gypsies
under tfie Swastika
Gypsy Research Centre
University of Hertfordshire Press
Donald Kenrick
Donald Kenrick's professional career has been in the teaching of languages and history.
Alongside this he has worked in a voluntary capacity as an adviser to Gypsy civil
rights organizations. His command of a wide range of languages has been called into
service at many international meetings.
His publications include On the verge - the Gypsies of England and Gypsies - from
India to the Mediterranean.
Grattan Puxon
Grattan Puxon is by profession a journalist. He helped to found the Gypsy Council
in Britain and later became Secretary of the International Romany Committee. After
the third World Romany Congress in Germany he returned to full-time journalism.
His publications include On the Road and Rom - Europe's Gypsies.
Together they wrote the first overall study of the Nazi persecution of Gypsies, published
in 1972 as Destiny of Europe's Gypsies. This has been translated into five languages
including a Romani version which is being republished in the standard orthography.
Contents
Preface 7
Introduction - The Romanies come to Europe 8
I. The Roots of Prejudice 9
II. The Non-Aryan Aryans 17
III. The Road to Genocide 31
IV. Europe under the Nazis (i)
The occupied Countries - Austria,
the Czech lands and western Europe 49
V. Europe under the Nazis (ii)
The occupied Countries - Yugoslavia
and eastern Europe 73
VI. In the Shadow of the Swastika
Germany's allies and Puppet States 99
VII. Concentration Camps and Medical Experiments 125
Conclusion 150
List of Illustrations 151
Songs 154
Select Bibliography 155
Acknowledgments
Thanks are due to the Wiener Library for a grant which assisted us originally in the
travel necessary for the research into documents and interviews, as well as for the
use of its extensive collection.
Extracts have been taken from the following copyright works:
Adelsberger, L. Auschwitz. Lettner Verlag, Berlin.
Jovanic, J. La Criminalite des Tsiganes. Etudes Tsiganes, Paris.
Knobloch, J. Volkskiindliche Sinti-Texte, Anthropos.
Kuznetsov, A. Babi Yar. MacGibbon and Kee, London.
Permission has been obtained where possible and we apologize for instances where
we have not been able to contact the copyright holder in the following pages.
Amongst the many individuals who provided information or advice for one or both
editions we would like to thank in particular Henriette Asseo, Lev Cherenkov, Carola
Fings, Marie-Christine Hubert, Milena Hubschmannova, Herbert Heuss, Valdemar
Kalinin, Mirella Karpati, Jean-Pierre Liegeois, the late Gyorgy Meszaros, Ctibor Necas,
Fritz Remmel, Frank Sparing and Erika Turner.
6
Preface
This book was originally intended to recount only the story of the Nazi
persecution of the Romany Gypsies —a story which had not yet been told.
The support of the Wiener Library made it possible for the authors to make
a short study trip to Europe to search through archives and interview survivors.
It soon became apparent however that this chapter in Gypsy history could not
be regarded in isolation. As well as belonging to the story of the Holocaust
which encompassed Jews and many other groups, it had to be seen as forming
part of a chain of persecution and harassment based on prejudices deep-rooted
in European society. The opportunity of this new edition in the English
language has given me the opportunity to revise the text and add new material
on the occupied and satellite countries. The new material reinforces our view
that the ultimate aim of the Nazis was the elimination of all Gypsies. It remains
the only book in any language which covers the fate of the Gypsies throughout
Europe during this period.
This second edition stops with the liberation of the camps and the end of the
Second World War. Unfortunately, this has not meant the liberation of the
Gypsy people from the subtler pressures of neglect and forced assimilation
which likewise threaten them with extinction as a separate people. Nor, sad
to say, an end to genocide in the world.
Donald Kenrick
London 1995
7
Introduction - The Romanies come to Europe
North India was the cradle of the Romany Gypsies and their language. There
are no contemporary accounts of the first families from India to reach Iran on
their long road westward to Europe but the Persian poet Firdausi, writing in
the tenth century, places their arrival some five centuries earlier. He tells of
ten thousand musicians sent from India to Shah Bahram Gur (who reigned
430-443 AD) to entertain his people with their music.
Linguistic and other evidence shows that the Romanies of Europe belong to
groups which left India between the fifth and eleventh centuries. Some crossed
the Bosphorus into the Balkans while others followed the route of returning
pilgrims across the Mediterranean islands to southern Greece and Italy. Nomads
are recorded 'stopping only thirty days in one place' in Crete as early as 1322
and settled shoemakers were already in Bulgaria by 1378. Many Romanies
later moved west as the Turks advanced into Europe.
By the beginning of the sixteenth century there were several hundred Romanies
in Europe belonging to different groups and practising various trades. In the
first chapter we look at their fate as a small and vulnerable minority which
was to culminate in the horrors of the Nazi period.
