Persecuted, Displaced, Overlooked

Between 1933 and 1945, Sinti and Roma were registered, deported and murdered by the German Nazi regime and its allies. Hundreds of thousands of Sinti and Roma lost their lives in concentration and extermination camps, ghettos and mass shootings in occupied Europe. Yet for decades after the war, this genocide remained at the margins of public memory and historical research. Survivors were denied recognition and compensation, and many of the perpetrators' racial categories continued to shape post-war policing and administration.

This lecture discusses the persecution of Sinti and Roma from the introduction of racial registration in Germany through to deportation and mass murder across Europe. It introduces a transnational online encyclopaedia and source edition on the Nazi genocide, based at Heidelberg University, which makes documents, biographies and local histories accessible to researchers, educators and the wider public. The lecture then turns to Australia. What paths led survivors and their descendants Down Under? How did they appear – or disappear – in post-war migration records?

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Image | Eduard Hugo and Dina Sophie Fischer with their children in Eggenfelden, Bavaria, before 1943. In spring 1943 the family was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Courtesy of Tatjana and Nicole Schmidt.