Having conquered European countries, the Nazis began to crack down on the Gypsies. They were forcibly sterilized and sent to death camps. During the years of World War II, about half a million German Roma were killed, and in the world their number reaches one and a half million. These events became known as Poraimos - Devouring.
Now let's talk a little about how the gypsies appeared in the European part. A thousand years ago, several small groups of Sinti and Roma migrated from North India. Gradually, they settled throughout Europe. This process lasted for several centuries.
Local peoples began to call them gypsies, falsely thinking that they came from Egypt. Even in our time, this name of the people has a negative connotation. Roma are considered an ethnic spot. This people was very different from the local inhabitants of Europe. The black gypsies were nomadic and spoke an incomprehensible language. Moreover, they were not Christians. The Europeans did not understand the culture of the Roma. This gave rise to suspicion and fear. Scary stories about them appeared. Even now, there are deep-rooted stereotypes about this people.
For centuries, Europeans have tried to assimilate or kill the Roma. Children were kidnapped from them and given to other families. The governments of the countries provided them with livestock and fodder, hoping that the Roma would be engaged in agriculture. Roma were obliged to attend schools and churches. Various local laws allowed the killing of the Roma people. In 1725, by order of the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm, all Roma over 18 years old were hanged.
This was a common practice for "hunting gypsies." In 1835, 260 Romani people were killed in Denmark. Donald Kenrick and Grattan Paxon wrote about this. These persecutions lasted for centuries, but were sporadic and remained relatively random until the 20th century. Thus, negative stereotypes about Roma have developed.
At the beginning of the Third Reich, a full-scale persecution of the Roma began. They were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Also, according to the law of 1933, representatives of this people were forcibly sterilized. The women were injected directly into the uterus with a needle infected with bacilli.
This caused inflammation, leading to infertility. This "procedure" was carried out not only for adult women, but also for teenage girls. The gypsies were not provided with medical assistance. Often women could not cope with the disease and died from blood poisoning. So the Nazis carried out the prevention of hereditary diseases of the offspring. At first, the gypsies began to be called the people who threatened the German Aryans.
Under Nazi racial ideology, Gypsies were also Aryans. And then the problem arose, how can you pursue a part of the Aryan super race? But the Nazi "scientists" found the answer to their question in the book of Professor Hans FK Gunther "Anthropology of Europe".
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It said that the Gypsies retained only a fraction of some elements of the Aryans. Due to migration, they mixed with the blood of other peoples, so they must be considered an eastern, West Asian racial cross with the addition of Indian, Central Asian and European strains. This is the result of their nomadic life. They are akin to aliens. During the 1936 Olympics, all Berlin gypsies were taken out of the city and placed on one site, Marzahn. In this narrow place there were about one and a half thousand Roma people. Then this place became a storehouse for sending Roma to concentration camps.
The Nazis began to determine which of the gypsies was "pure" rum, and who was a "cross". For this, a research group was even created in 1936. She was to deal with racial hygiene and population biology. Robert Ritter became its leader.
He began to study the "problem" of the Roma and develop recommendations for Nazi policy. As in the Jewish question, the "researchers" had to determine who to be considered gypsies. According to Dr. Ritter, Roma were considered those who had one or two Roma among their grandparents, as well as two or more partially Roma ancestors in the family.
Kenrick and Paxon accused Ritter of exterminating an additional 18,000 German Roma because of this inclusive definition. Even Jews required many more grandparents for their national identity. Eva Justin helped Dr. Ritter especially in his work. She and a group of researchers visited concentration camps where gypsies were kept.
The group examined, interviewed thousands of Roma, documented everything, photographed and recorded everything. Medical experiments were carried out on the gypsies. Gypsies with blue eyes were removed to study this phenomenon. There were also experiments on dehydration. Based on this, it was concluded that 90% of the Roma were of mixed blood and therefore were dangerous for the Aryan race. Now the Nazis were faced with the question, what to do with the remaining 10%?
Heinrich Himmler, Minister of the Interior, proposed that "pure" Roma could lead a relatively free life, but with reservations. For this, in October 1942, 9 gypsies were selected, who were asked to draw up lists of those who could be left alive. But there were people in the German government who believed that the Gypsies should be destroyed without exception.
Martin Bormann wrote about this in his letter to Himmler. Hitler also did not agree to give freedom to the Roma. Even for 10% of “pure” Roma, no exception was made. All of them were sent to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Back in 1938, Himmler issued a decree on the creation of a special search department, which was engaged in the fight against the "gypsy threat". By the end of World War II, during the time of Poramis, about half a million German gypsies had been killed.
About three quarters of German Roma and half of Austrian Roma were killed during the war years. In the occupied Soviet territories, the Nazis destroyed all the gypsy camps. Mass executions of Roma were carried out by the Nazis on the territory of Crimea.
In total, more than 30 thousand Roma who lived in the Soviet Union at the time of World War II were destroyed. According to rough estimates, in the Second World War, as a result of the genocide of the Roma people, one and a half million people died, and this, not counting the surviving victims of the Roma. In 2012, a memorial was built in Berlin to commemorate the Roma victims.
