Romany/Persecution

Earth that was Persecution

They have suffered severe persecution throughout their history, particularly in Europe

• Rumors were spread in medieval times that the Roma were descended from a sexual encounter between a Roma woman and Satan.

Many Christians at the time believed that a conspiracy of blacksmiths, wizards and women had been organized to attack the Church. Since many Roma were blacksmiths, the conspiracy theory expanded to involve the Romani.

• Another belief was that Roma forged the nails used in Christ's crucifixion. The Roma countered with the rumor that a Roma attempted to steal the nails so that Christ could not be crucified, but was only able to grab one.

• The Christian genocide against Witches during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance was also directed against the Roma. The courts seized and imprisoned them in Witches' prisons, often without even bothering to record their names.

• The Diet of Augsburg ruled that Christians could legally kill Roma. Meanwhile, the courts were closed to Roma who were injured by Christians.

• In 1721, Emperor Karl VI of what is now Germany ordered total genocide of the Roma. "Gypsy Hunts" were organized to track down and exterminate them. 4

• Roma were rounded up and imprisoned in Spain during 1749. They were considered a danger to society. A pardon was granted in 1763, and the Roma were released in 1765. 5

• In 1792, 45 Roma were tortured and executed for the murder of some Hungarians, who were in fact alive and who observed the executions.

• It is believed that as much as half of the Roma in Europe were enslaved, from the 14th century until Romani slavery was abolished in the mid-19th century.

• During the 1920's, in the Weimar Republic in Germany, the Roma were seriously oppressed. They were forbidden to use parks or public baths. Roma were required to register with the police. Many were sent to work camps "for reasons of public security."

• When the Nazis took power in the early 1930s, the Roma were further persecuted under the "Nuremberg Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor" In 1937, Heinrich Himmler issued a decree "The Struggle Against the Gypsy Plague," which increased police monitoring of the Roma.

• During the Nazi Holocaust, they were declared to be "subhuman". In 1941-JUL, the Einsatzkommandos were instructed to "kill all Jews, Gypsies and mental patients." A few months later, Himmler ordered that all Roma be deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau for extermination.

Sybil Milton, a former Senior Historian of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that 500,000 Roma and Sinti persons were executed during the Nazi Holocaust. This number is supported by the Romas and Sinti Center in Heidelberg. 2 The Roma refer to this genocide as the "O Porrajamos" -- literally "The Great Devouring."

• There are about 5,000 Roma survivors of the Nazi concentration camps who are still living. Because of continuing discrimination, they did not share in any of the hundreds of millions of dollars given to other survivors of the Holocaust.