The murder of around 500,000 of Europe’s Roma and Sinti by the Nazis and their collaborators during the second world war is a little-known aspect of the atrocities committed during this period.
In the immediate postwar period, war crimes against Roma were not prosecuted. Survivors struggled to get recognition and compensation for the persecution they experienced. Roma victims were also not acknowledged in monuments commemorating the Nazis’ victims.
Although there is now a greater awareness of the atrocities committed against the Roma, the struggle for recognition continues. The genocide against the Roma is described by Professor Eve Rosenhaft, a historian of modern Germany, as “the forgotten Holocaust”.
