During the Holocaust, it wasn’t just the Jews who suffered at the hands at the Nazis although they bore the brunt of the racism and extermination at the hands of the Germans and their allies during World War II. The Gypsies were also persecuted during the reign of Hitler and his henchmen.
The Nazis at their death camp at Auschwitz gassed 800 children including over 100 boys between the ages of 9-14 on this day. How did this ever be allowed to happen?
The Gypsy people were hated by the Nazis, the definition of what constituted a Gypsy to the Nazis was often the same as what constituted a Jew in the racist writings of the Third Reich. As early as 1937, the roundup of Gypsies was beginning in Germany.
The Germans did little to conceal their murderous plans. In 1937, Dr. Robert Ritter, a racist with a medical degree gave a presentation in Paris on what would be the racial definition of Gypsies as the Reich considered Gypsies “asocial.” In December of 1937, Heinrich Himmler issued a decree that provided grounds to arrest people, not for committing crimes but for being “asocial”.
