The Romani Holocaust was the systematic genocide of up to 500,000 Roma and Sinti people by Nazi Germany, representing one of the largest ethnic mass murders of World War II.
Key Facts
- Estimated victims (low)
- 250,000 people
- Estimated victims (high)
- 500,000 people
- Auschwitz-Birkenau deportees
- 23,000 people
- Auschwitz non-survivors
- ~21,000 people
- West Germany recognition year
- 1982
- Himmler deportation order
- December 1942
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Nazi racial ideology, codified through the 1935 Nuremberg Laws and a supplementary decree of 26 November 1935, classified Roma and Sinti as 'enemies of the race-based state.' Beginning in 1933, Nazi Germany pursued a policy of persecution through forced internment, compulsory sterilization, and legal discrimination, escalating steadily toward organized mass murder.
During World War II, Nazi German authorities and their collaborators subjected European Roma and Sinti to deportation, forced labor, and systematic killing in concentration and extermination camps. In December 1942, Heinrich Himmler ordered the deportation of all Sinti and Roma from the Reich to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In occupied Eastern Europe, mobile SS task forces and military units conducted mass massacres of Romani communities.
Between 250,000 and 500,000 Roma and Sinti perished in what survivors call the Porajmos. West Germany formally recognized the genocide in 1982, and Poland designated August 2nd as a day of commemoration in 2011. The genocide left deep demographic and cultural losses among Romani communities across Europe and remains a largely underrepresented chapter in Holocaust history.