Roma & Sinti Persecution in Nazi Germany

Jasmine Green

Week Seven – The Rise of National Socialism

In our class discussion of “degenerate art” and the fabrication of a “Jewish race” by the Nazi party, we did not have time to discuss in detail the particular brand of persecution leveled against Roma and Sinti peoples, otherwise known as Gypsies. Along with members of the LGBTQ+ community, twins, people living with mental illnesses, and members of the Catholic Church, Roma and Sinti people are among the “forgotten victims” of the holocaust.[1] According to Louise Ridley with the Huffington Post, “Romani gypsies were the second-largest group of people killed on racial grounds... They were considered outsiders and ‘racially impure’ by the Nazis and up to 1.5 million died in what is also known as the Porajmos (‘mass killing’ in Romani).” Ridley explains that this is a particularly important conversation for our class and community to have today because “only in the 1970s did the West German Federal Parliament classify their persecution as being racially motivated, and scholars largely ignored their deaths until the 1980s.”

Photo from the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma[2]

Who are the Roma & Sinti?

The Modern History Sourcebook on Gypsies in the Holocaust, produced by Fordham University – the Jesuit University of New York – explains that “Gypsies, or the Roma [and Sinti] as they prefer to be called, are an ethnic group which originated in India… which for unknown reasons took to a wandering life-style in the late middle ages... Because they were strangers to many of the people they moved among, strong prejudices grew up, and indeed continue to this day. Although they were indisputably ‘Aryan’ according to the Nazi racial typology, they were pursued relentlessly.”[3] According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, estimates of the number of Roma and Sinti living in Germany and Austria in 1938 range from 30,000–35,000, with numbers in the surrounding occupied countries estimated at 942,000. “Many Sinti and Roma traditionally worked as craftsmen (and craftswomen), such as blacksmiths, cobblers, tinkers, horse dealers, and toolmakers. Others were performers such as musicians, circus animal trainers, and dancers. By the 1920s, there was also a small, lower-middle class of shopkeepers and some civil servants, such as Sinti employed in the German postal service. The numbers of truly nomadic [Roman and Sinti] were on the decline in many places by the early 1900s, although so-called sedentary Gypsies often moved seasonally, depending on their occupations.” [4]

https://www.aol.com/video/view/romani-gypsy-campsite-in-slovenia-in-1943-silent/5533bd18e4b0280be0f225b5/

Video footage from a Romani Campsite in Slovenia in 1943[5]

The Porajmos & the 10 Stages of Genocide

“Zigeuner, the German word for Gypsy, derives from a Greek root meaning ‘untouchable.’”[6] Gregory Stanton is a world-renowned scholar on the history and reality of genocide, a concept and vocabulary that did not exist in academic or political thought until the Holocaust became widely visible. Stanton is accredited with coining the term ‘genocide’ and identifying its eight steps, which he has since updated to include ten.[7]

1.    Classification: us v. them

2.    Symbolization: names/symbols to classify ethnicity, race, religion, nationality, etc.

3.    Discrimination: powerless groups not given full civil rights and/or citizenship

4.    Dehumanization: second-class citizenship such as through hate speech

5.    Organization: troop mobilization on behalf of the state or terrorist group

6.    Polarization: broadcasted propaganda

7.    Preparation: the “Final Solution” is announced

8.    Persecution: victims are identified and separated

9.    Extermination: mass killing and the erasure of cultural history

10. Denial: genocide is not over until it is acknowledged

Ceija Stojka, Even Death is Afraid of Auschwitz[8]

Resistance

Ceija Stojka is a Porajmos/Holocaust survivor who spent her artistic career depicting the experiences of Roma and Sinti persecution in Nazi Germany and beyond.  Anthropologist Carol Silverman from the University of Oregon estimates that there are roughly12-14 million Roma and Sinti people around the world today.[9] Their survival has forced the world to acknowledge legacies of violence we’ve long silenced, to give a name to this level of racism and prejudice. The final stage of genocide is denial: we have to face it.

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[1] Ridley, Louise. The holocaust’s forgotten victims: The 5 million non-Jewish people killed by the Nazis. The Huffington Post, 27 January 2015, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/27/holocaust-non-jewish-victims_n_6555604.html. Accessed 26 February 2019.

[2] Deutscher Sinit und Roma. http://www.sintiundroma.de/en/centre/about-us.html. Accessed 26 February 2019.

[3] Modern History Sourcebook. Gypsies in the Holocaust. Fordham University, 1997, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/gypsy-holo.asp. Accessed 26 February 2019.

[4] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Who were the “Gypsies”? https://www.ushmm.org/learn/students/learning-materials-and-resources/sinti-and-roma-victims-of-the-nazi-era/who-were-the-gypsies. Accessed 26 February 2019.

[5] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. https://www.aol.com/video/view/romani-gypsy-campsite-in-slovenia-in-1943-silent/5533bd18e4b0280be0f225b5/. Accessed 26 February 2019.

[6] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Who were the “Gypsies”? *see footnote 4 above*

[7] Stanton, Gregory. Ten stages of genocide. The Genocide Education Project, 2013, https://genocideeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ten_stages_of_genocide.pdf. Accessed 26 February 2019.

[8] Ceija Stojka, ‘Even Death is Afraid of Auschwitz,’ https://womensartblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/13/ceija-stojka-painter-of-the-roma-holocaust/.

[9] Silverman, Carol. Professor confronts the persecution faced by Roma people. University of Oregon, 16 December 2016, https://around.uoregon.edu/content/professor-confronts-persecution-faced-roma-people. Accessed 26 February 2019.

Catastrophe in the Weimar Republic: Hyperinflation & Poverty

Lauren Hudson 
Week Six - The Weimar Republic 

In the wake of defeat in the grueling four-year First World War, Germany was bound to the Treaty of Versailles—a treaty that would slowly contribute to the major economic crisis that would hit Germany in the early 1920’s.

The Treaty of Versailles was an allegiance between Germany and the Allied Powers who had fought in the First World War. This treaty was designed to punish Germany for their wartime actions and had several stipulations that were intended to cater to the needs of the Allied Powers: reassignment of German boundaries, massive reduction of German armed forces, and the payment of reparations from Germany to the Allied Powers. Specifically, Part VIII of the treaty required that Germany repay the allies for their wartime losses—to which Germany agreed.

Upon this commitment, the country of Germany quickly found themselves in turmoil after failing to make these payments in the year 1922, as there was no more funding left to complete the action. The Weimar government found themselves printing more currency to pay the French, which in turn brought on an ultimate economic hyperinflation crisis to the country that intensified over a period of merely months, peaking in 1923.

This massive crisis can be interpreted through Weimar period photography, which highlights the intensity of devastation brought onto the German people. The value of the German mark exponentially imploded, and prices for simple everyday items—such as bread—ran to cost over 2 million marks in late 1923. By the fall months of 1923, the mark cost more to print than it was worth. The mark in turn became more valuable for the material itself than the intended currency value. 

Left: Man sweeps currency notes into drainage hole in street.
Right: Woman uses currency as fire fuel. 

This is shown through the photography of this period as shown in these images. These images depict residents of Germany using piles of marks for various purposes, all different from the intended purpose of currency. The mark was absolutely worthless to the working-class citizens of Germany, with some treating the notes as street trash, fire fuel, or even shape-shifting it into a form of attire.

Severe hyperinflation caused massive devastation among the German population, with starvation, poverty, homelessness, and poor health becoming common themes of German families.

It was not uncommon to find film and theater productions that made a mockery of the German government and expressed the frustration of the people for a government that put them into such a predicament.

Rapid industrialization was also effective at this time, although unemployment rose as business owners could not afford to support living wages, and the people therefore suffered. The reading "The Weimar Republic: Origins and Orientations" emphasized the heavy influence of industrialization in this period of post-war Germany.

A predominant film called "Metropolis" was also released in 1927 by director Fritz Lang. This science-fiction film depicted a futuristic, prosperous city existing in a utopia above an underworld populated by mistreated workers. This film served as a strong statement piece regarding class tensions in this time brought on by heightened economic stress. This film closely correlates with similar ideas of artists of the time, as demonstrated by the artwork observed in the class discussion depicting higher class citizens on a platform overlooking working-class citizens.

Link to Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on2H8Qt5fgA

In summary, various photographs, artwork, and films were created to depict the internal societal and economic struggles that plagued Germany during the period of the Weimar Republic.
These struggles would later lead to a political collapse that would enable the Nazi party to rise to power.



Sources:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5088405/When-cash-worthless-Germany-World-War.html
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/947960-nazism
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/treaty-of-versailles-1
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/ess_germanhyperinflation.html

Weimar Culture

Abbygail Fitzpatrick

Week 6- Weimar Art and Film

    The period after World War I until about 1924 was a dark time in Germany with poverty, hunger and inflation running rampant within the country. These terrible events leaked into culture and became expressed through many different forms of art. This includes a new genre of film that came out as a response to these events called expressionism. These films looked at all forms of social discontent. One specific subcategory of expressionism depicted homosexuality and the societal implications of repression. As indicated in the reading Less and More than Women and Men: Lesbian and Gay Cinema in Weimar Germany by Richard Dyer, these films were either censored or people tried to downplay the presence of homosexuality in the film. It was not uncommon for subjects, such as homosexuality that were considered taboo, like this to be shown in films, such as Madchen, at the time and to be criticized for it. These films were displaying some dark themes such as suicide and immorality that were not previously used in film and it gave rise to new genres that we see today such as Gothic Horror Movies and influencing filmmakers around the globe.

     One aspect of culture from this time that is not looked at as often as paintings or film are the forms in which music took on. Music, like other types of art, can be used as a way to express oneself and society as a whole. It can change along with the time and throughout the generations. The major genres of music in Germany during the Weimar era, specifically in Berlin, were classical, jazz and Cabaret. Each of these types of music were experienced in different ways by the population and all of them had some social implication that went along with them.

 Classical Music

One way in which classical music was enjoyed, aside from orchestral concerts, were in works of theatre such as those by famous composers of the time Alban Berg and Kurt Weill. Some of their operas were a social commentary set to a musical backdrop that was uniquely their own. Examples of this are: Wozzeck and The Threepenny Opera. Like the films and art that were looked at in class, these address different societal issues such as crime rates, prostitution and the morality of the lower class that persisted at the time. (0:14 -1:30)

Cabaret Music

During the late 1920's to early 1930's major cities across Germany enjoyed a very active night life. The middle class would go to clubs to listen to this form of music, which was at times satirical. The opera Threepenny composed by Kurt Weill actually coined the term cabaret. This music differed from theatre and plays because it was meant to be enjoyed in a more casual social setting with drinking and laughing. An example of a famous cabaret singer is Claire Waldoff who is seen in the video to the left. She was a known advocate against the socialist party and her music were usually political satires. When the Nazi regime began she was no longer allowed to perform. 

Jazz Music 

Jazz in the Weimar society was brought over from America, where the Jazz movement began. It was received relatively well and made popular during the mid-twenties. However, it was very different than the music native to Germany and incited some backlash that hindered its expansion. Due to the Nazi campaign and others who viewed Jazz as “un-German,” by the mid thirties it was all but non-existent in Germany. This picture (to the left) is an example of propaganda from the Nazi party that groups Jazz music, black people and Jewish people all together calling them degenerates. The caption says, "Degenerate Music: A Statement by the State Council."  

Overall the art and music of the Weimar period in Germany took on a unique stance to try and cope with the cultural uncertainty, economic hardships and social unrest. Depicting the hardships everyone had to face or satirizing the political and social climate through either art, film or music was a way to express their disgruntlement at current situations and try to call for change. Unfortunately, with the rise of Nazism a lot of this form of expression was eventually repressed, censored as exemplified by the poster above or completely eliminated like most cabarets.  

Sources
  https://alphahistory.com/weimarrepublic/weimar-cinema/
  https://search-proquest com.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/docview/1292670962/fulltextPDF/1F635B5131B04002PQ/1?accountid=14745
  Lareau, A. (1991). The German Cabaret Movement during the Weimar Republic. Theatre Journal, 43(4), 471-490. doi:10.2307/3207977