ROMA & SINTI


Roma & Sinti (Gypsies)

This is a Collection of Professor Ian Hancock, University of Texas at Austin, Member of the United States Holocaust Commission for the Roma and Sinti (Gypsies). Reproduced with permission of Professor Hancock.
auschwitz 1995
Gypsies are not allowed to participate in the 50th anniversary commemmoration of the liberation of Auschwitz in January 1995, where thousands of Sinti and Roma were murdered in the Holocaust.
1992 arrests
German police arrest Roma for deportation back to Romania from Hamburg, Germany,1992.
nazi blood sampling
Eva Justin and Robert Ritter, medical doctors associated with sterilization and euthanasia programs in the Nazi period  taking blood sample from a Sinti.
gypsy census 1895
French Gypsies being interrogated by the police for the 1895 Gypsy Census.
wax casts
Wax castes of Romani faces, Racial Hygience Centre.
romani survivor
Romani Auschwitz survivor, with tattooed number.
auschwitz children
Text should read: Various images of Roma and Sinti children taken at Auschwitz, 1942-1944.
Mengele twins
Pairs of Romani twin girls, used in Mengele's experiments at Auschwitz. Dr. Joseph Mengele, "The Angel of Death," was trying to solve the riddle of multiple births because of the needs for more Germans to populate territories in the new Germay expaned by war against Poland and the USSR.
Sinti boy
Criminal Police Document, Sinti boy, dated 1943.
unidentified girl
Initially, this image was called "Unidentified Sinti girl peering from a Transport Wagon on its way to Auschwitz, 1943." Hans Vanderwerff from The Netherlands has indicated that she is not an unknown Sinti girl, rather her name is Settela Steinbach. Her name was uncovered by the journalist Aad Wagenaar around 1994, therefore 50 years after her deportation. He documented his research in a book called "Settela. Het meisje heeft haar naam terug - the girl has her name back."The ISBN # is 90 295 5612/CIP and the publisher is "De Arbeiderspers Amsterdam - Antwerpen."  The book is available as of 2005 in English from:
Five Leaves Publications
PO Box 81, Nottingham, NG5 4ER,
info@fiveleaves.co.ukwww.fiveleaves.co.uk
The photo is taken from probably the only movie that includes film of a deportation train--that being from Westerbork. The extended film about Westerbork also shows some of the theatrical events there, which was controlled by inmates---somewhat different than events at Theresienstadt.
Her Christian name was Anna Maria Steinbach. The most famous part of it are the seven seconds with her. That train brought 238 Jews to Bergen-Belsen and 208 Jews and 245 Gypsies to Auschwitz. 30 Gypsies returned.
Aad Wagenaar described the search for the girl, going from thinking she was a Jewish girl to discovering her true identity in a conversation with Crasa Wagner, a survivor from that car and afterwards in Op zoek naar een naam, (Searching for a name) p.105-119 in Westerbork Cahiers 2: Kinderen in kamp Westerbork. (Children in Camp Westerbork), Westerbork being the Nazi transition camp for people transported to the East. ISBN 90-232-2916-9. This was published in 1994. Settela is one of the four cover children, including Anne Frank.
A more detailed description of the analysis of the movie leading to the end of Settelas classification as a Jewish girl, is to be found in Westerbork Cahiers 5: Kamp Westerbork gefilmd, which is all about the movie, p, 51-58.
With thanks for detailed information from  Theodoor Westerhof, The Netherlands.
roma arrest
Czech Police Arrest Roma, 1993.
collecting data
Eva Justin Collecting anthropometric data, 1942.
sachsenhausen inmates
Gypsy inmates at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp outside Berlin.
french interrogation
Police interrogation, France.
polish interrogation
Police interrogation, Poland, 1942.
eva justin
Eva Justin making a caste of the face of a Rom, Racial Hygiene Centre.
german interrogation
German police interrogate Roma, 1928.
Mengele twins
Gypsy children at Auschwitz who were part of medical experiments. Most such experiments were "terminal."
roma sinti children
Various images of Roma and Sinti children taken at Auschwitz, 1942-1944.
shatra
A shatra or Gypsy slave village, Romania, 1850s.
Roma Wagon
Roma wagon in the Museum of Transport, Glasgow, Scotland
Roma Wagon
Roma wagon in the Museum of Transport, Glasgow, Scotland