Children from St Josefspflege Mulfingen in Künzelsau, Germany, accompanied by a nun from the Untermarchtal convent, summer 1940. Since the end of 1938, the Catholic children’s home in Mulfingen had served as a collection point in Württemberg for Sinti and Yenish children and young people who had been forcibly removed from their families on racist grounds.
The photograph probably belonged to the teacher Johanna Nägele (1915–2011). So far, Angela Reinhardt (born 1934, front left) and the siblings Amanda (born 1930, 3rd row, 2nd from left), Scholastika (born 1929, on her right) and Rosa Roder (born 1937, 1st row, 2nd from right) have been identified.
The children were exploited by Eva Justin (1909–1966) in early autumn 1942 for field research. It was planned that all children and young people categorised as ‘Gypsies’ by the Racial Hygiene Research Unit should be deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. In March 1943, a young girl who had been released to a farming family was deported. Four children followed in January, and another 33 children and adolescents in May 1944. Only three of them survived.
Angela Reinhardt was spared deportation because she was registered under a different surname; the Roder siblings survived because they were not included in the list of people to be deported.
