Forgotten Victims: The Nazi Genocide of the Roma and the Sinti

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Photograph by Reimar Gilsenbach, an East German journalist who documented the persecution of the Roma and Sinti under the Nazis.

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Photographer unknown, likely a Nazi official.

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Nazi Persecution of the Roma and the Sinti

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Photographer unknown, likely a Nazi official.

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Photograph taken by employees of the Racial Hygiene Unit (Rassenhygienische Forschungsstelle) directed by Robert Ritter at Magdeburg forced labour camp.

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Photo by German SS photographer Friedrich Franz Bauer, as part of a propaganda photo report by Bauer titled ‘The Truth about Dachau’ (Die Warheit über Dachau) meant to show prisoners in good healt

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Photographer unknown, likely a Nazi official working for the Racial Hygiene and Population Biology Research Centre led by Ritter.

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Theresia Reinhardt (b. 1921), a Sinti woman and dancer at the Würzburg State Opera in Germany, 1942. Studio portrait likely commissioned by the family.

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Photographer unknown, a propaganda shot likely taken by a Nazi.

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Family photograph, likely taken by her mother, Theresia.

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Photograph taken by Walter Genewein, Nazi official head of the Lodz ghetto economy who took many colour slides of the ghetto and the surrounding areas.

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Photograph taken by Friedel Bohny-Reiter, who worked as a nurse for the charitable organisation Secours Suisse aux enfants in Rivesaltes from November 1941, caring for Jew

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Photographer unknown, likely a Nazi official in Auschwitz.

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Photographer unknown, likely UNRRA photographer.

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Photographer unknown, likely a Nazi official in Croatia.

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Where:

Virtual Exhibit

Date:

August 2020

This exhibition examines the Nazi genocide against the Roma and Sinti by uncovering the stories of some of those affected by the genocide. It explores the struggle that Roma have had in gaining recognition and compensation for the oppression they experienced as a result of this little-known aspect of Nazi persecution.

The exhibition is organized by the Wiener Holocaust Library with support from The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme.

Credits

Copyright: Wiener Holocaust Library Collections, Liverpool University Library, Landesarchiv Berlin, Bundesarchiv, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Most of the images used in this exhibit are perpetrator photographs taken by Nazi photographers and officials. Photography has played a major role in contributing to the construction of negative imagery of the Roma and Sinti, used to identify and track communities and enhance stereotypes.

These photographs perpetuate a prejudicial, othering gaze on their subjects, and do not reflect Roma and Sinti agency. The photographs have been contextualised to the best of our knowledge.

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Forgotten Victims: The Nazi Genocide of the Roma and the Sinti

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Credits