Gypsies at Belzec

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In 1926 a Bavarian law called for the registration of all Gypsies in order to prohibit them from roaming about or camping in bands. The law also noted that they could be sent to labor camps for up to two years if they could not "prove regular employment." As Hitler rose to power, the Gypsies, like the Jews, were officially identified as non-Aryan by the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.

Although the Nuremburg laws, did not specifically mention Romani, but they were included along with Jews and "Negroes" as "racially distinctive" minorities with "alien blood." As such, their marriage to "Aryans" was prohibited. They were also deprived of their civil rights.

By the summer of 1938, large numbers of German and Austrian Romani were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. There they wore black triangular patches (the symbol for "asocials") or green patches (the symbol for professional criminals) and sometimes the letter "Z."

As was the case for the Jews, the outbreak of war in September 1939 radicalized the Nazi regime's policies towards the Romani. Their "resettlement to the East" and their mass murder closely parallel the systematic deportations and killings of the Jews.

At the beginning of 1940 a large number of Jews and Gypsies (Sinti and Roma) were deported to Belzec from Polish towns, from Slovakia and from the Reich, notably from towns in Schleswig Holstein.

They were interned in three makeshift labour camps in the village and employed at constructing strategic border defences in the area.

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The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org