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Wiener Library

Persecution of Gypsies under the Nazis: Records


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 1556 WL 611

Held at: Wiener Library

Title: Persecution of Gypsies under the Nazis: Records

Date(s): 1934-1996

Level of description: Collection level (fonds)

Extent: 16 files

Name of creator(s): Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

Around 1968 Grattan Puxon (Secretary of the Gypsy Council) was asked by Vanko Rouda (Secretary of the Comité International Tsigane) to collect material which might help Gypsies in their reparations claims. At about the same time the Wiener Library was advertising grants for research into modern history. The two strands came together and after a meeting at Reading University it was agreed that Grattan Puxon and Donald Kenrick would work jointly on collecting material on the Gypsy genocide during the Nazi period.

As a result a volume of material was prepared, known as Gypsies Under the Nazis (611/16).

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers relating to the persecution of Gypsies under the Nazis, 1934-1996, including personal statements of Sinti and Roma on Nazi persecution; interview transcripts; copies of trial documentation; copies of journal articles; essays; photograph; correspondence; summary of a Nuremberg document No. 4037 regarding the registering of Gypsies, 21 May 1943; photograph of an extract from a list of regulations concerning the treatment of Gypsies for the Militärbefehlshaber in Serbien, 30 May 1941; photograph of an extract of a report issued by Der Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und SD in which it is stated that 2100 Jews and gypsies were executed in revenge for the shooting of 21 German soldiers near Topola, Serbia, 9 Oct 1941; transcription of an official circular issued by the ministry of internal affairs, Prague, regarding the restriction of movement for Gypsies in Moravia and Bohemia, Dec 1941; translation of an official circular issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Bratislava, regarding the travel limitations of Gypsies on state railways, 13 Jun 1944 and copy of a map of the Gypsy ghetto in Lodz.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: German, English, Russian, French, Italian, Romani, Hungarian, Czech, Esperanto

System of arrangement:

The original order in which the files were deposited has been retained. By and large each file reflects the subject content of the chapters in Destiny of Europe's Gypsies.

Conditions governing access:

Open

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies can be made for personal use. Permission must be sought for publication.

Physical characteristics:

Finding aids:

Description exists to this archive on the Wiener Library's online catalogue www.wienerlibrary.co.uk

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Accruals:

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Donald Kenrick

ALLIED MATERIALS

Existence and location of copies:

A further copy of Gypsies Under the Nazis can be found in Paris with the CIT (now known as the Comité International Rom).

Related material:

Publication note:

This work came to the attention of Professor Cohen of the University of Sussex who was editing a series on the Holocaust. It was agreed that the material which had been gathered would be turned into a book. for the series. This was Destiny of Europe's Gypsies. The book had 3 parts: 1) Before the Nazi period to show that the anti-Gypsy policy did not just suddenly emerge; 2) The Nazi period; 3) After 1945. This was to show how in many places discrimination continued.

The first draft of the book was completed in 1969 (and there are no bibliographical entries after that year) but not published until 1972. Destiny of Europe's Gypsies came out simultaneously in the US with a different cover and was translated along with the other books in the series into French and Italian. The German, Japanese and Romani translations contain some new material. A paperback edition of the French translation came out many years later. A revised Romani translation with illustrations also appeared some years afterwards.

Gypsies Under the Swastika is a revised edition of Destiny of Europe's Gypsies intended for the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II and published in 1995. The first part was shortened and the third part dropped completely. The notes and references were also dropped but some illustrations were added. It has been translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Bulgarian and Czech (with some new material).

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Archivist's note: Entry compiled by Howard Falksohn.

Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: November 2007


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Concentration camps | War crimes | Humanitarian law
Gypsies | Ethnic groups
Holocaust | Genocide | War crimes | Humanitarian law
Third Reich | Nazism | Totalitarianism | Political doctrines
War | International conflicts
World War Two (1939-1945) | World wars (events) | Wars (events)

Personal names

Corporate names
Auschwitz concentration camp
Buchenwald concentration camp
Jasenovac concentration camp
Lodz ghetto, Poland
Ravensbrück concentration camp
Sachesenhausen concentration camp
Sobibor concentration camp

Places
Austria | Western Europe | Europe
Bohemia | Czech Republic | Eastern Europe
Bratislava | Slovakia | Eastern Europe
Estonia | Eastern Europe
France | Western Europe | Europe
Germany | Western Europe | Europe
Hungary | Eastern Europe
Italy | Western Europe | Europe
Krym | Ukraine | Eastern Europe
Latvia | Eastern Europe
Lithuania | Eastern Europe
Moravia | Czech Republic | Eastern Europe
Poland | Eastern Europe
Prague | Czechoslovakia | Eastern Europe
Scandinavia | Northern Europe | Western Europe | Europe
Serbia | Yugoslavia | Eastern Europe
Crimea x Krym
Russia