The racist exonym ‘Zigeuner’ was the central term in the discourse that underpinned the National Socialist genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe. In the German Reich, it was used in the names of the organisations responsible for the persecution—such as the criminal police ‘Offices for Gypsy Affairs’ and the ‘Reich Central Office for Combating the Gypsy Nuisance’. The Racial Hygiene Research Unit used the term in its texts and publications; important official documents in the persecution process, like the ‘Circular Decree on Combating the Gypsy Menace’ of 8 December 1938, also used it. Just as the preparation and implementation of the Shoah was characterised by the dehumanising talk of a ‘Jewish question’ that needed to be solved, there also emerged the notion of a ‘Gypsy question’ which the National Socialists believed had to be dealt with.
The perpetrators were well aware of the violence inherent in the word. Robert Ritter (1901–1951), the head of the Racial Hygiene Research Unit, wrote in 1939: ‘The Gypsies do not call themselves “Gypsies”. This word sounds like a term of abuse in their ears.’1Robert Ritter, ‘Die Zigeunerfrage und das Zigeunerbastardproblem,’ Fortschritte der Erbpathologie, Rassenhygiene und ihrer Grenzgebiete 3 (1939): 5. After 1945, the word continued to be used in a derogatory, othering way for the survivors of the genocide and their descendants—and has not disappeared from the language to this day.
Conceptual Beginnings
The term ‘Zigeuner’ or ‘Zigeunerin’ was not an invention of National Socialism, but had already been used for several hundred years by the majority of society in German-speaking countries as a homogenising term for Sinti and Roma.
Its significance stems from the history of antigypsyism in Europe, of which it is an essential ingredient; its origin has yet to be firmly established. There are various explanations. One of them is that there is a connection to the Greek word ‘Athinganoi’ [‘untouchables’]—the name for a Byzantine sect in the early Middle Ages.2See Wolf, ‘Helfer des Feindes’. In German, the chronicler Andreas von Regensburg (after 1380–after 1438) probably first spoke of ‘gens Ciganorum, volgariter Cigäwnär’ in 1427.3Bogdal, Europa erfindet, 23.
In English and Spanish, the exonyms ‘Gypsies’ and ‘Gitanos’ are used, terms which probably reflect an early notion that Sinti and Roma had arrived in Europe from Egypt.4See Unabhängige Kommission Antiziganismus, Perspektivwechsel, 32. The word ‘Cigány’ also exists in Hungarian, the word ‘Cyhan’ in Ukrainian and the word ‘Çingene’ in Turkish. The history and semantic content of the German word ‘Zigeuner’ are not identical to those of these terms. In addition to the history and development of each language, the völkisch-eliminatory connotation of the term in German, which includes National Socialist ideas of society (‘Volksgemeinschaft’) and violent, thoroughly inhuman annihilation fantasies, should be considered here in particular. In this respect, translating ‘Zigeuner’ as ‘Gypsy’, as is often done, can blur differences in meaning.
The persecution of Sinti and Roma in the German-speaking countries and territories of Europe has been associated with the derogatory term ‘Zigeuner’ from the very beginning. The word became a marker for otherness, rootlessness and inability or refusal to settle—and thus for not belonging to society. In the early modern period, the term was also used to stigmatise people who travelled to earn a living or who were forced by poverty to leave their place of residence frequently. Those so labelled were ostracised and repeatedly expelled and subjected to draconian punishments. In the Romantic period, the word took on an additional meaning: alongside defamation came exoticisation. From then on, ‘Zigeuner’ were not only imagined as dangerous and depraved, but also as free and mysterious.
Racialisation
In the 19th century, the exonym and the attributions associated with it were charged with elements of modern racism, which went hand in hand with official control and surveillance of those on whom they were imposed. In official discourse, the phrase ‘Gypsies and those who roam around in Gypsy fashion’ was increasingly common, with ‘Gypsy’ clearly referring to the racially defined subgroup of Sinti and Roma. Antigypsy policies in Germany used the term in two senses, namely a sociographical or behavioural one, meaning ‘itinerant groups as a whole’, and a racist one aimed at Sinti and Roma as a ‘“Volk”, “tribe” or “race”’.5Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid, 63. Nevertheless, in the 1920s, there was a radicalisation of policy, with a shift towards the use of ‘racial’ categories in discriminatory special measures and laws6See in particular Opfermann, ‘“Rassenkunde”’, but also Luchterhandt, ‘Stereotyp und Sonderrecht’.—a ‘policy of institutionalised harassment’7Ibid, 111.—introduced in the German federal states.
A Key Term in the National Socialist Persecution
Where National Socialism held sway, Sinti and Roma were systematically persecuted and murdered. The term deployed in this persecution was the exonym ‘Zigeuner’ in its modern, deeply racist meaning. In Germany, Sinti and Roma were gradually excluded from all areas of society, spatially segregated and disenfranchised. According to the Nuremberg Laws and the regulations laid down in the implementing ordinances, they were considered to be ‘racially alien’. A fictitious ‘racial diagnosis’ was created with the ‘expert opinions’ of the Racial Hygiene Research Unit, which were drawn up under duress and played a ‘key role’ in the genocide of the German Sinti and Roma ‘as they helped to mark the transition from marginalisation to extermination within the persecution process’8Fings, ‘Die “gutachtlichen Äußerungen” der Rassenhygienischen Forschungsstelle’, 455.. Those affected were declared to be ‘Zigeuner’ or ‘Zigeunermischlinge’, with ‘Mischlinge’ considered particularly ‘inferior’ and a threat to the ‘Volksgemeinschaft’ from the perspective of the perpetrators. In the German-occupied countries of Europe, various Nazi state agencies, including the Wehrmacht, also used a different matrix of categorisation to distinguish among ‘Zigeuner’, namely the difference between ‘nomadic’ and ‘sedentary’—and this also had devastating, life-threatening consequences for those affected.
In the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, the people who were deported there as ‘Zigeuner’ were tattooed with the letter ‘Z’ and a number.
Persistent Antigypsyism
The racialisation of the term ‘Zigeuner’ during National Socialism continued after 1945, and with it the idea that there were unchangeable, innate characteristics of those labelled in this way that ran counter to a national ‘we’. In West German police practice, the term ‘Landfahrer’ was established as an equally degrading, stigmatising synonym that was primarily used until the 1970s. Following public pressure generated by the Sinti and Roma civil rights movement, which led to an increasing move away from the term, the discriminatory ciphers ‘häufig wechselnder Aufenthaltsort’ (HWAO) [frequent changes of residence] and ‘Tageswohnungseinbrecher’ (TWE) [daytime domestic burglar] were introduced in the early 1980s. These were used as racial codes for the police monitoring and surveillance of Sinti and Roma.9Feuerhelm, Polizei, 139–146. To this day, the word ‘Zigeuner’ is used as an insult and a derogatory term; it also features in product branding to promise exoticism and in that way, too, reinforces ‘traditional lines of marginalisation’10Randjelović, ‘Zigeuner_in’, 676.. It remains important to emphasise that the racist exonym—and the attributions associated with it—has nothing to do with the people who see themselves as Sinti and Roma. The ideological distortion obscures the realities of the lives of Sinti and Roma and the diversity of Romani perspectives, voices and lifestyles—and is based on projections and false assumptions on the part of the majority societies.
Rejection of the Exonym after 1945
Since the 1980s, the civil rights movement of the Sinti and Roma in (West) Germany has been able to sensitise large sections of the public and state actors to reject the racist designation of others and to recognise endonyms.11In addition to ‘Sinti and Roma’, which is commonly used in German, ‘Roma’ became established internationally as a frequently used endonym for all members of the minority as a result of the first World Roma Congress, which was held near London from 8 to 12 April 1971.
When the word ‘Zigeuner’ is used today with a critical intention, for example to raise awareness of historical and contemporary antigypsyism, it is either crossed out (Zigeuner) or put in inverted commas. There is also the variant of abbreviating the word with the letter ‘Z’ (‘Z’ or ‘Z-…’); however, this is criticised for echoing the racialising language used in the history of violence against Sinti and Roma.12See Randjelović, ‘Ein Blick über die Ränder’.
In the Encyclopaedia of the Nazi Genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe, the racist exonym appears as a source term and is sometimes used to emphasise racist injustice. Where it is necessary to use the word, it is placed in inverted commas and italics. In addition, the term is linked to this lemma each time it is mentioned for the first time in a text.
