Timeline

30 January 1933Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, is appointed Reich Chancellor in Germany. On 1 February 1933, he dissolves the Reichstag, which means the end of democracy.

28 February 1933The ‘Decree for the Protection of the People and the State’ (Reichstag Fire Decree) abolishes the most important civil rights in Germany and paves the way for dictatorship.

14 July 1933The ‘Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring’ is passed in Germany and comes into force on 1 January 1934. It forms the basis for forced sterilisation.

7 January 193464 Norwegian Roma are expelled from Belgium and leave the country for Oslo, Norway. Two days later, they board a ship in Hamburg, Germany. On arrival in Trelleborg, Sweden, they are turned away by the authorities and have to return to Hamburg by ship.

7 March 1934The German police escort a group of over 60 Norwegian Roma to the Belgian border town of Herbestahl. They are temporarily taken in there to negotiate their repatriation with Norway. Norway refuses to allow the Roma to enter the country. Most of them are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp around ten years later.

16 May 1934Bernhard Pabst is the first Sinto known by name to be sent to Dachau concentration camp in Germany, which was set up in March 1933.

4 March 1935The city of Magdeburg, Germany, decides to set up a detention camp for Sinti and Roma.

May 1935Around mid-May 1935, the first detention camp for Sinti and Roma is established in Cologne, Germany.

15 September 1935The ‘Reich Citizenship Law’ and the ‘Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour’, the so-called Nuremberg Laws, are passed in Germany.

23 December 1935The boxer Johann Wilhelm ‘Rukeli’ Trollmann is forcibly sterilised in the ‘Rummelsburg labour and detention centre’ in Germany.

23 December 1935The city of Gelsenkirchen, Germany, issues a local statute regulating the operation of the detention camp on Cranger Strasse.

3 January 1936In Germany, the Minister of the Interior points out in a circular that in Europe ‘apart from the Jews, only the Gypsies’ are regularly counted among the ‘alien races’.

6 June 1936In Germany, the circular on ‘Combatting the Gypsy Menace’ is issued, ordering constant monitoring and restrictive measures against Sinti and Roma.

1 November 1936Germany and Italy sign a treaty of alliance (‘Berlin-Rome axis’).

25 November 1936Germany and Japan sign the ‘Anti-Comintern Pact’ against the Soviet Union. Italy joins the pact on 6 November 1937.

1 January 1937In Finland, a law (‘Irtolaislaki‘) comes into force to control and regulate persons capable of working who ‚pose a threat to public order’.

3 December 1937In Fascist Italy, police chief Arturo Bocchini instructs the prefects to report the number of Sinti and Roma present in each province.

6 Dezember 1937In a circular, police chief Arturo Bocchini, Italy, orders the arrest of all “gypsies” in the provinces of Bolzano, Trento, Trieste, Gorizia, Pola, Fiume and Zara.

14 December 1937The ‘Decree on the Preventive Fight Against Crime’ is issued in Germany. On this basis, the criminal police can deport Sinti and Roma to concentration camps at any time.

10 January 1938The Prefect of Pola, Oreste Cimoroni, orders all Carabinieri offices in Istria, Italy, to arrest all Roma and send them into banishment (confino).

17 January 1938In Italy, the decision is made that Sinti and Roma must relocate to provinces in southern and central Italy; for those who are considered particularly ‘dangerous’, police banishment (confino) to southern Italy or Sardinia is envisaged.

12 May 1938Austrian Roma from Burgenland write a letter of protest to the Reich government complaining about the restriction of their rights. None of the men survive the Nazi era. Franz Horvath dies on 22 October 1939 as a result of mistreatment he endured in Dachau concentration camp in Germany.

16 May 1938Heinrich Himmler orders the establishment of the ‘Reich Central Office for Combating the Gypsy Nuisance’ in the Reich Criminal Police Office in Berlin, Germany.

17 June 1938On this day, the number of Roma and Sinti and Roma affected by the ‘confino’ (police banishment measure) in Italy totals 142 people, most of whom are minors.

30 September 1938Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Great Britain and France accept the ‘Munich Agreement’, which means the loss of the Czechoslovak borderland (the so-called Sudetenland) and the demise of the First Czechoslovak Republic.

1 October 1938The so-called Second Czechoslovak Republic is created on the territory of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia without the territories annexed to Germany, Poland and Hungary (on the basis of the so-called Munich Agreement and later the so-called Vienna Arbitration).

1 October 1938Heinrich Horvath, Wenzel Horvath and Alois Sarkösi, originally from Austria, are transferred from Dachau concentration camp in Germany to Flossenbürg. According to current knowledge, these are the first Roma to be deported to Flossenbürg.

1 October 1938The ‘Reich Central Office for Combating the Gypsy Nuisance’ in Berlin, Germany, is in operation.

14 October 1938Foundation of the University Institute of Hereditary Biology and Eugenics in Copenhagen, Denmark. Shortly afterwards, the institute begins to study the ‘gypsy population’.

8 December 1938The circular decree issued by Heinrich Himmler on ‘combating the Gypsy Menace’ emphasises the racial policy objectives of state measures in Germany.

14 March 1939The independent Slovak State is declared.

15 March 1939German troops occupy the remaining territory of the Czech part of Czechoslovakia, i.e. the territory of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, which Germany and Poland have not occupied and annexed until then. The day after that, the newly occupied territories are established as ‘Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia’.

15 April 1939On the basis of the Reich Law ‘On the Division of the Sudeten German Territories’ [Gesetz über die Gliederung der sudetendeutschen Gebiete], the Reichsgau Sudetenland is created with the capital Liberec (then Reichenberg).

22 May 1939Germany and Italy sign the ‘Pact of Steel’, which extends the previous treaty of alliance to include close military cooperation and mutual support in the event of a war of aggression.

9 June 1939In Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Sinti and Roma living in caravans are only allowed to live in the detention camp on Reginenstraße, which is guarded by a Sturmabteilung (SA).

16 June 1939In Finland, a law on compulsory labour in times of war ( ‘Työvelvollisuuslaki‘) comes into force.

28 June 1939At least 554 Sinti and Roma men from Austria are imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp in Germany.

1 September 1939The Wehrmacht invades Poland in the early hours of the morning, with which Germany starts the Second World War.

3 September 1939The United Kingdom declares war on Germany.

26 September 1939At least 534 Sinti and Roma, all men, are transferred from Dachau concentration camp, Germany, to Buchenwald concentration camp.

27 September 1939143 Sinti and Roma, all men, are deported from Dachau concentration camp in Germany to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.

9 October 1939In Austria, there are demands for Roma and Sinti to be ruthlessly housed in closed camps.

9 October 1939The first German Jewish refugees arrive at the new Central Refugee Camp Westerbork in the Netherlands.

17 October 1939In Germany, the ‘Festsetzungserlass’ (Immobilisation Decree) prohibits all Sinti and Roma from changing their place of residence or domicile under threat of imprisonment in a concentration camp.

22 October 1939A decree bans ‘nomadic and showman families‘ from eight departments in western France. House arrest or expulsion to the interior of the country is ordered.

30 November 1939The Ministry of the Interior of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia issues a decree according to which all ‘roaming Gypsies’ have to settle within two months.

30 November 1939Start of the Finnish-Soviet ‘Winter War’ with the Soviet Union’s attack on Finland. The hostilities end on 13 March 1940.

1 December 1939A second detention camp for the internment of Sinti and Roma is put into operation in Nádražní Street in Reichenberg, formerly Liberec (Sudetenland, German annexed Czech Lands). At the same time, a third detention camp operates there in the Horní Růžodol district.

12 March 1940The ‘Peace of Moscow’ on 12 March 1940 ends the ‘Winter War’ between Finland and the Soviet Union. Among the 450,000 Karelian refugees are around 1,500 and 2,000 Finnish Roma.

6 April 1940The French Government orders the ‘house arrest’ of ‘nomads’ throughout French territory. This abolishes freedom of movement for Sinti and Roma by decree.

9 April 1940German troops march into Denmark. The government and parliament remain in place despite the occupation.

27 April 1940Heinrich Himmler orders the deportation of Sinti and Roma from western and north-western Germany to the General Government, German-occupied Poland.

10 May 1940Germany extends the war to Western Europe; the Wehrmacht invades Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

27 May 1940The Swiss consul Franz Rudolph von Weiss, based in Cologne, Germany, reports on the May deportation.

10 June 1940Italy enters World War II as an ally of the German Reich. On 15 June, Benito Mussolini orders the arrest and transfer of foreign Jews to concentration camps and places of internment.

11 June 1940In Italy, it is decided that all ‘suspected gypsies’, especially those without Italian citizenship, can be transferred to a concentration camp (campo di concentramento) on the recommendation of the prefect.

17 June 1940The Soviet Union occupies and subsequently annexes Estonia, alongside Latvia and Lithuania.

26 June 1940The so-called ‘Continuation War’ (‘jatkosoda’) involved renewed hostilities between Finland and the Soviet Union and lasted until 19 September 1944. Finland’s military activities were closely coordinated with the National Socialist war of aggression against the Soviet Union.

1 July 1940Head of Einsatzgruppe III orders a census of ‘professional criminals and anti-social individuals’ in German-annexed Alsace (France).

25 July 1940The first Sinti and Roma are sent to the Neuengamme concentration camp in Germany, which was initially set up as a satellite camp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in December 1938 and became an independent camp in spring 1940.

14 August 1940The German police authorities settled in Alsace (German-annexed France) order the gathering of people labelled as ‘gypsies’ to the Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp in order to expel them to unoccupied France.

5 September 1940The ’Nuremberg Laws’ are introduced in German-occupied Luxembourg.

11 September 1940In Italy, Sinti and Roma with ‘established or presumed Italian citizenship’ are ordered to be interned in localities.

17 September 1940Members of the Goman and Bogdan families are interned in the village of Barra near Ferrara, Italy. In the summer of 1941, they are transferred to Agnone concentration camp (campo di concentramento) via Bojano concentration camp.

22 September 1940The first Sinti and Roma, all men, are imprisoned in the Wewelsburg satellite camp of Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany. From 1 September 1941, the satellite camp becomes an independent concentration camp in Niederhagen/Wewelsburg.

27 September 1940Germany, Italy and Japan sign the ’Tripartite Pact’, which becomes known as the ‘Axis Alliance’.

31 October 1940A decree issued by the Reich Criminal Police Office enables the subordinate authorities in Austria to tighten their policy towards Roma and Sinti, including by concentrating them in guarded settlements and detention camps.

8 November 1940Joseph Toloche, his wife Flore Boudin and their children Marguerite and Bernard are arrested in Rouen (German-occupied France), where they had fled during the invasion of Belgium by German troops. They are interned in detention camps and Flore Boudin dies of a miscarriage. Father and children flee back to Belgium and are deported from there to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Only Joseph Toloche survives.

11 November 1940Internment of ‘nomades’ in the Forge camp in Moisdon-la-Rivière, France.

12 November 1940In German-occupied Belgium and northern France, itinerant trade is banned in the coastal zone (Flanders and Antwerp district). Although this measure does not explicitly mention Sinti and Roma, it has a direct impact on their professional activities.

18 November 1940Around 80 Sinti are interned in Prignano sulla Secchia, Italy. 60 per cent of them are minors. Fioravante Lucchesi is among the internees.

23 November 1940The first Roma are sent to the ‘Zigeunerlager’ Lackenbach in Burgenland, Ostmark (Austria).

10 December 1940At least 30 Roma from the Austrian Burgenland are included in a transport arriving at Neuengamme concentration camp from Buchenwald concentration camp.

16 December 1940The eleven-member Marinkovitch family is arrested in their home town of Calais (German-occupied northern France) because it is part of the ‘Forbidden Coastal Zone’ and deported to the interior of France.

19 December 1940The first Roma families are interned in Bojano concentration camp (campo di concentramento) in Italy. In 1941, there are 66 Roma and Sinti and Roma in this camp.

13 January 1941Up to this day, 878 Roma and Sinti ‘with established or presumed Italian citizenship’ are arrested in Italy in order to intern them in localities.

14 January 1941Opening of the Rivesaltes camp in Vichy-France. During its existence, almost 1400 ‘nomads’ pass through this camp.

27 February 1941From 27 February, the internees of the Moisdon-la-Rivière camp were transferred to the Choisel camp in Châteaubriant, both in France. They were repatriated in September 1941.

6 April 1941As part of the ‘Balkan Campaign’, Germany and Italy invade the Kingdom of Yugoslavia without prior declaration of war. The Axis powers Germany, Italy and Hungary divide the country among themselves. The Independent State of Croatia is also created.

10 April 1941The military administration for Belgium and Northern France prohibits Sinti and Roma from living in the Coastal Zone (East and West Flanders and the Antwerp district).

15 April 1941The Danica camp is established as the first concentration camp in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). About 5 000 inmates pass through the camp, most of them Serbs and Jews, followed by Roma and Croatians.

3 May 1941The southern regions of Slovenia are annexed by Italy as the ‘Province of Ljubljana’.

20 June 1941The entry register of the Rivesaltes camp in Vichy-France records the arrival of 448 ‘nomades’ from the internment camp in Argelès-sur-Mer.

22 June 1941Germany invades the Soviet Union and advances with its troops to just outside Moscow by the end of the year.

3 July 1941In German-occupied Estonia, the indigenous auxiliary police Omakaitse is re-established and assists the German army in pursuing communists and their sympathisers. Members of Omakaitse participate in ad hoc arrests of Roma.

7 July 1941The German 18^th Army crosses the border into Estonia.

9 July 1941In German-annexed Alsace (France), the December 1937 ‘Decree on Preventive Fight Against Crime’ is issued.

11 July 1941Pärnu Prison, officially designated a concentration camp for political prisoners, becomes operational in German-occupied Estonia. In 1941–42 it serves as a police detention facility for local Jews and Roma.

13 July 1941Roma partisan Muharem Asović participates in the anti-fascist uprising against Italian occupation forces in the wider area of Nikšić and Šavnik in Montenegro.

16 July 1941In German-occupied Estonia, the Tartu concentration camp is established in mid-July 1941, shortly after the capture of Tartu. Among the inmates was a group of Roma, who were shot there in the autumn of 1941.

18 July 1941The Hungarian Parliament discusses the prevention of marriages between Roma and Non-Roma.

22 July 1941The Reich Main Security Office instructs the Königsberg Regional Criminal Police Headquarters to set up a detention camp for Sinti and Roma from East Prussia, German Reich.

23 July 1941It is decided that in future only Sinti and Roma are to be interned in the concentration camp (campo di concentramento) in Agnone, Italy, which was set up in June 1940.

13 August 1941In Germany, the ‘racial diagnosis’ of the Racial Hygiene Research Unit is announced by decree as the basis for further policies against Sinti and Roma.

16 August 1941Between this date and 24 August 1941, all Sinti and Roma are transferred from the Bojano concentration camp (campo di concentramento) in Italy to the Agnone camp.

27 August 1941In German-occupied Estonia, the 18^th Army of the Wehrmacht prescribes engaging ‘idlers’ in physical labour. Roma are forced to assist in gathering crops with their horses and carts.

28 August 1941The Wehrmacht captures the capital of Estonia, Tallinn. The Tallinn Central Prison serves as the main collection point for Estonian Jews and Roma prior to their execution.

1 September 1941Internment of ‘nomades’ in the Arc-et-Senans camp, France.

10 September 1941Dr Martin Sandberger orders the arrest of all Jews in German-occupied Estonia. Hundreds of men, women and children are murdered.

16 September 1941General Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Germany, issues the ‘Sühnebefehl’ (atonement order) to the Wehrmacht High Command, instructing the troops to execute 50–100 civilians for every German soldier killed in an ambush.

18 September 1941The Wehrmacht orders the arrest of all Roma in German-occupied Estonia.

21 September 1941Harald Turner, head of the German military administration in occupied Serbia, draws up a report in which he proposes the arrest of all Jews and Roma.

29 September 1941Pärnu Prison in German-occupied Estonia has 302 inmates. Among the prisoners are 50 Roma.

4 October 1941Als Reaktion auf die Ermordung von 21 Wehrmachtsoldaten in der Nähe von Topola, deutsch besetztes Serbien, wird die Erschießung von 2 100 Juden und Roma als Geiseln beschlossen.

6 October 1941In German-occupied Estonia, 61-year-old Sophie Siimann dies while incarcerated in Pärnu Prison.

10 October 1941A few days after ordering the shooting of hostages by the Wehrmacht as ‘retaliation’ for the losses at Topola, German-occupied Serbia, the Plenipotentiary Commanding General issues an order that forms the formal basis for the subsequent Wehrmacht massacres of Jews, Roma and Serbs.

20 October 1941During a raid in Niš, German-occupied Serbia, a Rom, who is forced to pass on police orders, warns the Roma to be arrested in Romanes, whereupon some are able to flee.

26 October 1941In German-occupied Serbia, an order is issued to all field and district commands that Jews and Roma are to be taken hostage for reprisals

26 October 1941150 detainees, among them ten Sinti and Roma, are sent from Buchenwald concentration camp (Germany) to Natzweiler concentration camp in German-annexed Alsace (France). The Natzweiler camp was established on 1 May 1941.

1 November 1941On the night of 1 November 1941, the Estonian Security Police in Narva (German-occupied Estonia) rounds up 260 people, including a Roma family of three.

1 December 1941The German military commander’s office in occupied Estonia amends the order of 18 September 1941 that all Roma should be arrested, stipulating that only ‘itinerant’ Roma should be arrested while those with a permanent address should be kept under police surveillance.

4 December 1941In German-occupied Estonia, Reich Commissioner Hinrich Lohse communicates the decision of 1 December to the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Ostland, Friedrich Jeckeln, interpreting it to mean that all Roma should be imprisoned.

1 January 1942From this date, Roma are no longer allowed to enter the city of Tartu (German-occupied Estonia) without special permission.

20 January 1942Five Roma youths stage an escape from Pärnu Prison in German-occupied Estonia. Prison guards rapidly apprehend three of them, Juhan Koslovski, Robert Mitrovski, and Karl-Alfred Mitrovski. Richard Eamets and Karl Koslovski manage to flee.

20 January 1942The Wannsee Conference takes place in Berlin. The subject of the meeting is the murder of the European Jews.

21 January 1942In German-occupied Belgium, special identity cards for Sinti and Roma are introduced on the initiative of the Belgian aliens police. Sinti and Roma are not allowed to leave their place of residence between 5 and 20 January for the issuing of special ID cards.

7 February 1942In German-occupied Estonia, a village elder orders the liquidation of Karl Koslovski’s household because he has been sent to a concentration camp.

10 February 194246 inmates of the Niederhagen/Wewelsburg concentration camp, including the Sinti Felix Adler, Hermann Broschinski, Franz Lursky, Paul Morgenstern and Janko Weiss, are deported to an unknown killing centre and murdered as part of ‘Aktion 14f13’.

1 March 1942Between March 1942 and early spring 1944 the ‘juvenile correctional facility’ in Laitse, German-occupied Estonia, serves as a detention centre for Roma teenagers. Few of them, if any, survive.

6 March 1942The police transfers 48 Roma from Pärnu Prison to Harku prison camp in German-occupied Estonia before 6 March 1942.

9 March 1942The Government of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech lands) issues Decree No. 89/1942 Coll. on the ‘Preventive Fight against Crime’.

21 March 1942The German Criminal Police Headquarters in Prague issues a ban on the release of inmates from the ‘penal labour camps’ [kárné pracovní tábory, KPT], taking all inmates into ‘preventive custody’ and labelling them as ‘asocials’ (Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, German occupied Czech Lands).

17 April 1942In German-occupied Estonia, Tartsan Koslovski and Robert Mitrovski escape from Harku prison. Robert Mitrovski dies in a mass killing on 27 October 1942; all trace of Tartsan Koslovski is lost after the escape.

13 May 1942Transfer of the 257 internees from the Moisdon-la-Rivière camp to the Mulsanne camp, and closure of the Moisdon-la-Rivière camp (France).

15 May 1942The Arc-et-Senans assembly camp, France, becomes an detention camp for ‘nomades’.

27 May 1942Conference in Tallinn (German-occupied Estonia) on the subject of cooperation between the German and Estonian branches of the police. Heinrich Bergmann, commander of the German Criminal Police in Estonia, speaks on the ‘Solution to the Gypsy Question.’

1 June 1942Arrest and interrogation of Karl Siimann in Paide (German-occupied Estonia).

6 June 1942In German-occupied Estonia, Peeter Burkevich escapes from Harku Prison. He is caught after a few hours.

19 June 1942Slovenian partisans carry out a massacre of 41 Roma in the village of Kanižarica in the district of Črnomelj, which lies in the Italian-annexed province of Ljubljana. Not only individual Roma accused of espionage are killed, but also entire families.

22 June 1942The first Roma are interned in the concentration camp (campo di concentramento) in Tossicia, Italy. Others follow in the next few months.

24 June 1942Im Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren (deutsch besetzte tschechische Länder) ergeht der „Erlass zur Bekämpfung der Zigeunerplage“, eine Kopie der gleichnamigen deutschen Verordnung.

26 June 1942Rom Štefan Nikolić from Bistra, Independent State of Croatia, is arrested and deported to the Danica camp in early July of that year. He declares himself a Croat and Roman Catholic, but is nevertheless deported to Jasenovac, where he is killed in 1944.

27 June 1942The Strasbourg criminal police implements a racial census to ‘definitively resolve the gypsy question in Alsace’ (German-annexed France).

1 July 1942In the German occupied Netherlands, the Central Refugee Camp Westerbork becomes a transit camp under the control of the Security Service (SD) for the deportation of Jews. On 15 July, the first transport leaves the camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

1 July 1942The Estonian Security Police reports on 17 Roma (six males and eleven females) who have faced a firing squad up to this point. Among the dead are probably the two children Vera and Valentina Indus.

14 July 1942The Foreign Security Service (Amt VI) of the Reich Security Main Office writes to German security officers in Western Europe, seeking information about ‘Gypsies’ in Britain, United Kingdom.

18 July 1942In German-occupied Estonia, Harku prison camp houses 1,133 inmates, including 328 Roma (189 of them children).

27 July 1942The security police put an ‘SS transit camp for Jews’ into operation in the Dossin barracks in Mechelen, German-occupied Belgium. It is the central camp for the realisation of deportations to the Nazi concentration and extermination camps.

2 August 1942In the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech Lands), the ‘Zigeunerlager’ Lety near Pisek and Hodonin near Kunstadt start to operate. During the first days more than a thousand people are transported to each camp.

29 August 1942In German-occupied Serbia, the Chief of the Administrative Staff Harald Turner reports that in Serbia ‘the Jewish question and the Gypsy question have been solved’.

4 September 1942On 4 or 5 September, the Sinto Johann Wilhelm ‘Rukeli’ Trollmann, German light heavyweight boxing champion in 1933, is sent to Neuengamme concentration camp in Germany, where his date of death is registered as 9 February 1943.

15 September 1942Josef Serinek manages to escape with a few other men from a work group outside of the ‘Zigeunerlager’ Lety near Pisek, Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech lands) and joins the resistance movement. His wife Pavlína Janečková and their six children die in Lety or in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

25 September 1942In neutral Sweden, the government declares that it is necessary to take measures against Roma.

15 October 1942The Estonian Security Police reports 58 Roma children at Laitse Juvenile Correctional Facility in Harju province (German-occupied Estonia).

27 October 1942Between 15 October 1942 and March 1943, presumably around the time of the first larger mass killing of Roma in German-occupied Estonia on 27 October 1942, 42 Roma teenagers held in Laitse Juvenile Correctional Facility are murdered in Kalevi-Liiva.

27 October 1942Murder of 243 Roma in Harku (German-occupied Estonia), among them Karl Siimann, Leontine Siimann and Richard Siimann.

2 November 1942The Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union establishes the Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK).

22 November 1942The Rivesaltes camp in Vichy-France is closed and 299 ‘nomades’ are transferred to the Saliers camp.

7 Dezember 1942The first transport of Sinti and Roma from the ‘Zigeunerlager’ Hodonin near Kunstadt, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech Lands), to Auschwitz I concentration camp is carried out on the basis of the order on the ‘preventive fight against crime’. The transport consists of 78 mostly elderly male and female prisoners.

16 December 1942‘Auschwitz Decree’: Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel (‘Reichsführer SS’), orders the deportation of Sinti and Roma from the German Reich to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

31 December 1942The whole ‘Zigeunerlager’ Lety near Pisek in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech Lands) is put under quarantine due to a typhoidus and typhus epidemic.

15 January 1943In Berlin (Germany), members of the Reich Criminal Police, the Racial Hygiene Research Centre, the Security Service and the Race and Settlement Main Office agree on the forced sterilisation of those Sinti and Roma who are not intended for deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

22 January 1943Head of the German Security Police in occupied Estonia Dr Martin Sandberger orders the deportation of all Estonian Roma.

29 January 1943The Reich Security Main Office in Berlin, Germany, issues more detailed instructions on the deportation of Sinti and Roma to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

3 February 1943Eight Roma from the southern part of German-occupied Estonia are imprisoned in the ‘labour education camp’ at Murru. Up to November 1943, a further 67 Roma are brought to the camp.

6 February 1943Nine Sinti and Roma, men between the ages of 16 and 32, are arrested in the ‘Forbidden Coastel Zone’ in Antwerp, German-occupied Belgium. They are transferred to Germany via the prison in Antwerp, the Citadel of Huy and the Saint-Gilles prison in Brussels and deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in November 1943. Only one of them, Joseph Collicon, survives.

8 February 1943Start of deportation of Roma from all over German-occupied Estonia to Tallinn. Tallinn Central Prison becomes a collection point for deported Roma in Estonia.

9 February 1943A train with 92 Roma on board departs from Rakvere for Tallinn in German-occupied Estonia. Briefly incarcerated in Tallinn Central Prison, Roma from all over Estonia face death by bullet.

10 February 1943Mass shooting of 110 Roma previously imprisoned in Tallinn Central Prison (German-occupied Estonia) by the German Security Police, probably in Kalevi-Liiva. Among the victims is Lonny Indus from Narva, wife of Willem Indus, together with their six children.

12 February 1943174 Roma, originally from smaller towns and villages in Estonia, are transferred from Tallinn police detention facility to Tallinn Central Prison.

13 February 1943In German-occupied Estonia, Robert Burkevich manages to escape from the deportation train scheduled to leave Tapa station for Tallinn Central Prison. He is soon caught.

17 February 1943Due to the spread of an epidemic of typhoid and typhus among the prisoners, the ‘Zigeunerlager’ Hodonin near Kunstadt, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech Lands), is put under quarantine.

17 February 1943Mass shooting of 337 Roma previously imprisoned in Tallinn Central Prison (German-occupied Estonia) by the German Security Police, probably in Kalevi-Liiva. Willem Indus from Narva is among the victims, as are the fifteen-year-old Pavel Koslovski from Petseri parish and his father, Nikolai Koslovski.

26 February 1943The first Sinti and Roma are deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in Camp Section BIIe on the basis of the ‘Auschwitz Decree’. From 1 March 1943, further deportation trains with Sinti and Roma arrive almost daily.

6 March 1943The first mass transport from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech Lands) to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp on the basis of the ‘Auschwitz’ decree, numbering approx. 1,040 Roma men, women, and children, leaves the city of Brno. They are registered in the camp on 7 and 8 March.

9 March 1943The Decree on the ‘preventive fight against crime’ is issued in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech Lands). This decree is largely a copy of the regulation of the same name issued in the German Reich by Heinrich Himmler in 1937.

10 March 1943 The second mass transport from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech Lands) on the basis of the ‘Auschwitz decree’, departing from the city of Prague and numbering approx. 650 Roma men, women, and children, arrives in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. They are registered on 11 March.

14 March 1943Some of the around 130 men, women and children, who are interned in the detention camp in Kunratická Street in Reichenberg (Sudetenland, German annexed Czech Lands) are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

15 March 1943Presumably on this day, the Dycha family of ten is arrested in Hrušky for deportation to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Thanks to the support of local officials, they are released. However, they are later deported to Auschwitz on the fourth transport from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German-occupied Czech Lands). No one survives.

17 March 1943658 Sinti and Roma from the Sudetenland (German annexed Czechoslovakia) are registered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

19 March 1943About 1,050 men, women and children deported from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech lands) on the basis of the ‘Auschwitz decree’ are registered on arrival in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. They arrive on the third mass transport from the Protectorate, departing from the city of Olomouc.

21 March 194363 individuals from Moselle and Saar arrested by the Saarbrücken (Germany) criminal police as ‘gypsies’ are registered at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

22 March 194361 individuals from Alsace arrested by the Strasbourg (German-annexed France) criminal police as ‘gypsies’ are registered at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, among them Maria Barbara Gerste with her family.

23 March 1943Around 23 March, approx. 1,700 Sinti and Roma are taken from barracks 20 and 22 in Camp Section BIIe, Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, and murdered in the gas chambers. They are men, women and children who had been brought in from the Bialystok region.

29 March 1943The Reich Security Main Office orders the deportation of Roma and Sinti from German-occupied territories and countries (Belgium, Bialystok district, Alsace, Lorraine, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and northern France) to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

5 April 1943Niederhagen/Wewelsburg concentration camp in Germany is dissolved as an independent main camp and most of the inmates are transferred to other camps. 42 remaining prisoners are liberated on 2 April 1945.

7 April 1943Born in 1925, Johann Waszkowski (also known as Jan Wackowski) is the first young person from the Sinti and Roma minority to be registered in the ‘bricklayer school’ of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

8 April 1943Roma and Sinti from Nikolsburg, formerly Mikulov (Sudetenland, German annexed Czechoslovakia) and surrounding areas are deported as part of a mass transport of Roma from the Burgenland (German annexed Austria) to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

19 April 1943Karel Serynek, who had escaped from a labour detachment of the ‘Zigeunerlager’ Lety near Pisek, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German-occupied Czech lands) on 15 September 1942, is shot during an attempted arrest.

22 April 1943Hans Braun and two of his cousins are deported from Luxembourg-Grund prison to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. This is the only known direct deportation of members of the minority from German-occupied Luxembourg to Auschwitz.

28 April 1943In Denmark, a study on Danish ‘gypsies’ deploying racial-biological criteria is published in English.

7 May 1943About 860 men, women and children, mainly inmates of the detention camp Lety near Pisek, are registered in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. They were deported in the fourth mass transport from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech lands) on the basis of the ‘Auschwitz decree’.

10 May 1943Four Romani men escape from the ‘Zigeunerlager’ Hodonin near Kunstadt, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech Lands). Bohuslav Dydy is shot, Blažej Dydy later deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp (survives), Ludvík Murka later executed in Prague. Antonín Murka goes into hiding and joins the resistance movement (survives).

22 May 1943The teenagers Albert Bernhardt and Rudolf Stein are shot at the ‘Wall of Death’ in the Auschwitz concentration camp after a failed escape attempt.

23 May 1943The Reich Ministry for the Ostland allows for the continuous incarceration of ‘sedentary’ Roma, without treating them like Jews.

25 May 1943In Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, 507 Sinti and Roma, all men and boys, as well as 528 Sinti and Roma, all women and girls, from Camp Section BIIe are taken away and murdered in the gas chambers. They are Polish Roma from Bialystok (German-occupied Poland) and Roma from Austria.

31 May 1943During a one-day series of police raids in neutral Sweden, 453 Roma are registered by the police.

3 June 1943Stanisław ‘Stahiro’ Stankiewicz is born in Dominów, a work detail of the Majdanek concentration camp in German-occupied Poland.

11 June 194331 Roma and Sinti and Roma interned in the commune of Valdastico, Italy, attempt to escape. 13 adults with children are seized and taken back.

1 July 1943In the Netherlands, the German occupation authorities impose a ban on travelling for people living in caravans, which also affects Sinti and Roma.

22 July 1943A Strasbourg (German-annexed France) police statistical report indicates that 673 ‘gypsies or mixed-race gypsies’ have been expelled to unoccupied France since July 1940.

6 August 1943In German-occupied Estonia, Juhan Burkevich, Richard Koslovski, and Johannes Koslovski try to escape from Tallinn Central Prison. Richard Koslovski succeeds while the other two are captured and later in December 1943 transferred to Murru ‘labour education camp’.

8 August 1943In Lety near Pisek in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the liquidation of the ‘Zigeunerlager’ is completed and the camp is officially closed down.

22 August 1943About 770 men, women and children, mainly prisoners of the ‘Zigeunerlager’ Hodonin near Kunstadt, are registered in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. They were deported in the fifth mass transport from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech lands) on the basis of the ‘Auschwitz decree’.

23 August 1943The British Special Operations Executive, United Kingdom, receives a report from the intelligence service of the Polish Home Army describing ‘mass executions of gipsies’ in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

29 August 1943The Danish government resigns and the country, which has been under German occupation since 1940, is then governed by a German military administration.

7 September 1943The Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK, Soviet Union) publishes a communiqué on Orel oblast with information about Nazi mass killings of Roma.

8 September 1943After the fall of Benito Mussolini on 25 July 1943, the new government under Marshal Pietro Badoglio negotiates with the Allies. The armistice was signed on 3 September 1943 and announced on 8 September. On 10 September, the release of ‘nationals of an enemy state’ from the concentration camps (campi di concentramento) was decreed. Political internees and other ‘categories’ had already been released earlier. ‘Gypsies’ were disregarded and were therefore not yet released.

11 September 1943Arc-et-Senans camp is closed and 168 inmates are transferred to Jargeau camp, German occupied France.

12 September 1943In Italy, the deportation of the Jewish population to the extermination camps begins with the transfer of some Italian territories to German military administration and the occupation by the Wehrmacht of those parts of Italy not yet liberated by the Allies.

12 September 1943After the fall of Benito Mussolini in Italy, Germany places former Italian provinces under military administration. South Tyrol, Trentino and Belluno are administered as ‘Operational Zone Alpine Foreland’, the provinces of Udine, Gorizia, Trieste, Pula and Fiume as ‘Operational Zone Adriatic Coast’.

23 September 1943In northern Italy, following the announcement of the armistice and the liberation of Mussolini by German paratroopers, the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Italian Social Republic) is founded, a fascist puppet state under the protection of Germany.

26 September 1943All those interned in the concentration camp (campo di concentramento) in Tossicia, Italy, flee the camp as it is no longer guarded.

30 September 1943The ‘Zigeunerlager’ Hodonin near Kunstadt in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech lands) is disbanded, but officially closed down only on 1 December 1943.

12 October 1943Order to record the civil status of Poles, ‘Zigeuner’ and ‘Ostarbeiter’ in the districts of Esch/Alzette, Diekirch and Grevenmacher, German-occupied Luxembourg, for the issue of income tax cards for the year 1944.

15 October 1943Reich Criminal Police in Berlin proposes treating ‘sedentary’ Roma in the ‘Ostland’ like the non-Romani population while confining ‘itinerant’ Roma to concentration camps.

19 October 1943On the basis of the ‘Auschwitz decree’, the sixth mass transport from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech Lands), departing from the cities of Prague and Brno and numbering approx. 90 people, arrives in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

12 November 1943100 Sinti and Roma from Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp arrive at Natzweiler concentration camp in German-annexed Alsace (France) for medical experiments. 18 died during the transport.

23 November 1943In Flers-en-Escrebieux (Pont-de-la-Deûle department), the Lagrené family of 15 is arrested in order to transfer them via the Loos-lez-Lille prison to the ‘SS transit camp’ in Mechelen (German-occupied Belgium and northern France).

23 November 1943In Tournai, German-occupied Belgium, 19 members of the Karoli family are arrested by the Feldgendarmerie.

24 November 1943The French musician Jean ‘Django’ Reinhardt is denied entry to Switzerland near Geneva.

1 December 1943In Finland, a law (‘Erikoistyöleirilaki‘) comes into force that allows people to be sent to separate labour camps if, in the view of Finnish legislators, they are ‘unwilling to work’ or have an ‘undesirable lifestyle’.

9 December 1943The German criminal police in the area of the German Military Commander for Belgium and Northern France draw up a list with the name of 351 Sinti and Roma who are destined for deportation. One woman, Jeanne Royenne Vados, is later deported without having been registered on this list.

11 December 1943Jacqueline Vadoche is born in the ‘SS transit camp’ Mechelen in German-occupied Belgium. After being deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, she died in the camp on 1 May 1944.

12 December 194389 Sinti and Roma, all men, aged between twelve and 37 are registered in the Natzweiler concentration camp in German-occupied France. They are the second group of Sinti and Roma transferred from Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp to be abused for medical experiments.

23 December 1943Otto Koslovski is dispatched to Murru ‘labour education camp’ in German-occupied Estonia. This is the last available information about him.

24 December 194372 Sinti and Roma, all men, who survived criminal human experiments in Natzweiler concentration camp (German-annexed Alsace, France) are deported back to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp; during the transport 28 of them die.

15 January 1944From the ‘SS transit camp’ in Mechelen, German-occupied Belgium, 352 men, women and children are deported on the train known as ‘Transport Z’ to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, where they arrive two days later. One-year-old Georgette Hédouin dies during the transport.  

27 January 1944About 30 Sinti and Roma, former internees from the ‘Zigeunerlager’ Hodonin near Kunstadt, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech lands), are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

28 January 1944On the basis of the ‘Auschwitz decree’, the seventh mass transport from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupied Czech Lands), departing from the cities of Prague and Brno and numbering approx. 40 people, arrives in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

7 March 1944Two-year-old Robert Georg Lehmann is deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp together with his five-year-old brother Egon Karl Lehmann after being forcibly transferred from Luxembourg to the German Reich by the German criminal police. Neither child survived the camp.

13 March 1944American intelligence officers in London, United Kingdom, receive from Polish intelligence a report on conditions in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp that includes accounts of Section BIIe.

24 March 1944Tallinn Central Prison in German-occupied Estonia reports 61 (German and Czech) Jews and 31 Roma among its 2,867 inmates.

15 April 1944473 Sinti and Roma, women and girls, are transferred from Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany.

15 April 1944884 Sinti and Roma, men and boys, are transferred from the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp to Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany. One prisoner dies during the transport or manages to escape, as 883 are registered in Buchenwald.

9 May 194439 children, all of them Sinti, are deported from the St. Josefspflege children’s home in Mulfingen, Germany, to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Only four children survive the deportation and are transferred to Buchenwald and Ravensbrück, including Luise Mai and Rosa Georges. The two girls experience their liberation in Dachau; in the meantime, they were also imprisoned in the Wolkenburg satellite camp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp in Germany.

14 May 1944In the German occupied Netherlands, the Commander of the Security Police (SIPO) and the Security Service (SD) orders the arrest and internment in Westerbork of ‘all persons […] who possess the characteristic of Gypsies.’

16 May 1944In the Netherlands, Ludwig, Josephine, Johanna, Clara and Frieda Georg are arrested in Solweg during the nationwide round-up and taken to Westerbork. Edi Georg goes into hiding.

16 May 1944In the German occupied Netherlands, a nationwide round-up of Sinti and Roma takes place. 578 Sinti, Roma and travellers are sent to the transit camp Westerbork.

19 May 1944In the German occupied Netherlands, 245 Sinti and Roma and 208 Jews are deported from the transit camp Westerbork to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp . In Assen, German-occupied Netherlands, twelve Sinti and Roma are loaded onto this train. Thanks to the help of a policeman, Zoni Weisz escapes deportation with her aunt and cousins. A deportation train from Mechelen (Dossin barracks), German-occupied Belgium, is coupled to the train from Westerbork en route; on this train is a Rom named Stevo Karoli.

21 May 1944245 Sinti and Roma, deported from Westerbork, German-occupied Netherlands, on 19 May 1944 are registered in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

24 May 1944161 Sinti and Roma, women and girls, are transported from Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany.

27 May 194482 Sinti and Roma are transferred from Auschwitz concentration camp to Flossenbürg concentration camp in Germany and registered there. The majority of the men perform forced labour in various satellite camps from January 1945 at the latest.

15 June 1944Fioravante Lucchesi joins the Resistenza (resistance movement) in Italy.

12 July 1944In Switzerland, a new directive prohibits the deportation of people whose ‘life and limb’ are at risk. Nevertheless, 17-year-old Anton Reinhardt is expelled on 8 September 1944.

2 August 1944535 Sinti and Roma, women and girls, together with 490 men and boys, are transferred from Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany.

2 August 1944918 Sinti and Roma, men and boys, are transferred from Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.

23 August 1944The British Home Office, United Kingdom, considers interning ‘Gypsies’ or restricting their mobility, but no such policy is introduced.

29 August 1944The Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK, Soviet Union) publishes a communiqué on Pskov oblast with information about Nazi mass killings of Roma.

29 August 1944210 Hungarian Roma, all women, are deported from Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany.

30 August 1944Vinzenz Rose is able to escape from Neckarelz, Germany, a satellite camp of Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, with the help of his brother Oskar Rose.

1 September 1944The Graslitz, Wolkenburg and Zwodau satellite camps, which had previously been assigned to Ravensbrück, were placed under the Flossenbürg concentration camp. There were more than 500 Romani  women, in these satellite camps. Among them were Lily van Angeren-Franz, Rosa Höllenreiner and Elisabeth Schneck-Guttenberger, who fled during a death march.

2 September 1944Allied troops liberate the first areas of German-occupied Belgium and northern France.

4 September 1944End of the evacuation of Natzweiler concentration camp (German-annexed Alsace, France) by the SS administration. The 7 000 remaining detainees are transferred to Dachau concentration camp.

14 September 1944Vaclav Ferda, Josef Florian, Willi Rose, Emil Růžička and Johann Stojka are transferred from the Auschwitz I concentration camp to Flossenbürg concentration camp in a transport with a total of 100 prisoners. The five men had previously been transferred from camp section BIIe in Auschwitz-Birkenau to the main camp, some of them as early as 1943.

17 September 1944The auxiliary police Omakaitse in German-occupied Estonia is dissolved.

19 December 1944The ‘Armistice of Moscow’ between Finland and the Soviet Union ends the Finnish-Soviet hostilities.

25 September 1944200 male Sinti and Roma, all of them children and teenagers, are transported from Buchenwald concentration camp to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Only two survivors of this transport are known: Alfred Rosenbach and Rudolf Böhmer.

10 October 194449 Sinti and Roma, all women, are transferred from Altenburg, a satellite camp of Buchenwald concentration camp, to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

11 October 1944110 Sinti and Roma, all women, are transferred from Hasag-Taucha, a satellite camp from Buchenwald concentration camp, to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Joséphine Lagrené and Jeanne-Marie Modis-Galut are among the prisoners.

22 October 1944After several dozen of his relatives are killed by Ustaša in the fascist Independent State of Croatia, Bosnian Rom Nadir Dedić joins the partisan resistance movement.

24 October 1944Transfer of 231 Sinti and Roma, detainees in Dachau concentration camp, to Schömberg, a satellite camp of Natzweiler concentration camp.

24 October 1944End of the German occupation of Estonia.

14 November 1944157 Hungarian Roma, all men, are sent to Dachau concentration camp in Germany. By 21 December 1944, a total of around 1,100 Roma, men and women, from Hungary are sent to Dachau for forced labour. The women are transferred to Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen shortly afterwards.

22 November 1944Dissolution of the Schirmeck-Vorbruck security camp in Alsace (German-annexed France).

24 November 1944461 women arrive at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp from Allach satellite camp of Dachau concentration camp in Germany, including 125 Hungarian Roma with their children. This is the first known group Transport of Roma to this camp.

25 November 1944Entrance of the American troops in the deserted Natzweiler concentration camp (German-annexed Alsace, France).

27 December 1944Wilma Braidich and Maria Levakovich are arrested by the security police in Talmasson, Italy.

11 January 1945Maria Braidich, Wilma Braidich and Maria Levakovich are among other deportees on a transport from Trieste, Italy, via Udine to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany.

12 January 1945Together with other Sinti and Roma, Louise Maitre is transferred from Wolkenburg, a satellite camp of Flossenbürg concentration camp, Germany, to Ravensbrück.

20 January 1945In the Zwodau satellite camp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp in Germany, around 200 Hungarian Roma women were imprisoned alongside German-speaking Sinti women.

4 February 1945Belgium is completely liberated from German occupation.

1 March 194570 Sinti and Roma, all women, arrive at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, having been transferred from the Buchenwald satellite camp in Taucha.

4 March 194527 Sinti and Roma, all women and mainly of German nationality, are transferred from the Altenburg satellite camp of Buchenwald concentration camp to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. More than half of them are under the age of 25.

6 March 1945A transport of prisoners from Ravensbrück arrives at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, including female Sinti and Roma with their children.

19 March 1945A transport of prisoners from Mauthausen arrives at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. They include the Sinti woman Antonie Steinbach and her three children.

26 March 1945A transport of prisoners from Ravensbrück arrives at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, including Sinti and Roma women with their children.

31 March 1945After escaping from a satellite camp of Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp, 17-year-old Anton Reinhardt is seized and murdered near what is now Bad Rippoldsau, Germany.

11 April 1945Buchenwald concentration camp is liberated by US troops.

12 April 1945In the German occupied Netherlands, the 850 Jewish prisoners remaining in the transit camp Westerbork are liberated by the Canadian army.

13 April 1945The women of the Wolkenburg satellite camp, Germany, including Rosa Mettbach, Marie Fröhlich and Mädie Franz, are first driven by the SS towards the Flossenbürg concentration camp and then to Dachau. On this death march, five women, including three Sinti or Roma, were shot near Irrenlohe.

15 April 1945British soldiers liberate Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Around a quarter of the liberated inmates die in the following weeks as a result of their imprisonment.

23 April 1945US troops liberate the Flossenbürg concentration camp in Germany.

26 April 1945Gervaise Schmitt-Vinstretin and Marie-Madeleine Vinstretin are registered in a hospital in Malmö, Sweden, where they are evacuated shortly before the liberation of the Ravensbrück concentration camp thanks to the Red Cross.

26 April 1945Ramiz Džemail Hamidovski, a Rom from Skopje, Macedonia, and brother of Hamid Džemail Hamidovski, fights as a partisan against the German occupation. He is killed during a battle in the Croatian village of Jamarica.

29 April 1945Dachau concentration camp in Germany is liberated by American troops.

30 April 1945The Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany is liberated by soldiers of the Soviet Red Army.

2 May 1945The unconditional surrender of the German troops in Italy comes into force.

8 May 1945The surrender, dated 8 May and signed on 9 May in Berlin-Karlshorst, marks the end of World War II and the National Socialist regime in Germany.

17 September 1945The ‚Belsen Trial‘ begins in Lüneburg, Germany, which is also the first Auschwitz trial on German soil, as several defendants were not only deployed in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, but also in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

27 February 1946During the Trial of the Major War Criminals at Nuremberg, Germany, the Soviet prosecution reads aloud from German reports about the forced sterilisation of a Roma woman in German-occupied Latvia.

22 June 1946A general amnesty is announced in Italy, which also cancels the banishment of Sinti and Roma under the fascist regime.

26 February 1947In Belgium, compensation is only granted if the arrest was caused by ‘selfless patriotic activity’ during the German occupation. As racist reasons are not taken into account, Sinti and Roma who survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp are not compensated.

29 May 1947Franz Böhme, former Plenipotentiary Commanding General in German-occupied Serbia and one of the main defendants in the ‘Hostages Trial’ (Case VII) before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, commits suicide in prison before the arraignment.

15 September 1947Beginning of the Einsatzgruppen trial in Nuremberg, Germany, against 24 former SS men who bore significant responsibility for crimes committed in the German-occupied Soviet Union during World War II.

8 October 1947Otto Ohlendorf, the former head of Einsatzgruppe D of the Security Police and the SD, is interrogated about mass killings of Roma at the Nuremberg Einsatzgruppen Trial (Case 9), Germany.

10 November 1947Law No. 59 of the American military government regulates the restitution of property in the US zone (part of occupied Germany) and becomes the model for later restitution laws.

1 January 1948Foundation of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Arolsen, American occupation zone, Germany, as a central tracing service for the victims of Nazi persecution.

6 May 1948In the Netherlands, the first memorial on which Sinti or Roma are mentioned by name is unveiled on the Brink in Vledder. Among the names of the victims (‘those who fell’) are also those of Josephine, Frieda and Clara Georg who were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau in August 1944.

26 April 1949The South German Council of States passes the US Compensation Act, which becomes the starting point for the later Federal Compensation Acts in Germany.

23 May 1949The constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany is promulgated.

22 February 1950In a circular decree, the Württemberg-Baden Ministry of Justice in Germany advises that applications from ‘gypsies’ must always be forwarded to the criminal investigation department to check the legitimacy of the claims before they are processed.

24 June 1950In Czechoslovakia, a group of Romani representatives from Brno, among them Rudolf Daniel (born 1911), Anna Danielová and Rudolf Daniel (born 1919), founds the ‘Provisional Regional Committee of Gypsies’.

1 August 1950Law No. 117/1927 Coll. on ‘roaming Gypsies’ is repealed by § 150 of Law No. 88/1950, the new penal code for Czechoslovakia.

26 May 1952 The Federal Republic of Germany signs the ‘Transition Treaty’, in which the Western Allies link national sovereignty rights to a nationwide standardisation of reparation regulations.

10 September 1952With the Luxembourg Agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany and Israel and the Claims Conference, Germany commits itself for the first time to global compensation for foreign victims of Nazi persecution.

18 September 1953The first federal law on compensation in Germany, the so-called Federal Compensation Act, is passed by the Bundestag.

1 July 1954The Swedish parliament abolishes the entry ban on Sinti and Roma that has been in force since 1914.

6 May 1955The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) takes over the sponsorship of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Arolsen, Germany.

7 January 1956The Federal Court of Justice in Germany issues its precedent-setting ruling that the collective persecution of Sinti and Roma on the grounds of ‘race’ only began on 1 March 1943.

29 June 1956In Germany, the Federal Supplementary Act is replaced by the improved and more comprehensive Federal Compensation Act.

29 July 1957The Federal Restitution Act introduces uniformity across the federal states in the management of restitution regulations and practice.

18 December 1963The Federal Court of Justice in Germany reverses its 1956 judgement and recognises that racial-political reasons for the persecution of Sinti and Roma could have been a contributing factor even before 1943.

14 November 1965The Federal Compensation Final Act in Germany provides for improvements for those persecuted. Sinti and Roma are allowed to re-file rejected claims.

8 Septmeber 1968An international memorial is inaugurated on the grounds of the Dachau concentration camp memorial site in Germany, which opened in May 1965. The memorial includes a depiction of the brown triangle representing the Romani victim group.

30 January 1969Dortmund Regional Court sentences Herbert Andorfer, former camp commander of the Sajmište concentration camp in Belgrade, German-occupied Serbia, to two and a half years for complicity in the killing of more than 5 500 Jews.

30 August 1969The Czech ‘Union of Gypsies-Roma’ [Svaz Cikánů-Romů] is officially established in Brno, Czechoslovakia.

2 March 1971The Romanian government sends approximately 155,000 applications for compensation to the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, including thousands of applications from Romanian Roma.

18 March 1973The Commission of Former Victims of Concentrations Camps of the Union of Gypsies-Roma organises in Hodonín near Kunštát the first public commemoration at the site of the former ‘Zigeunerlager’.

15 January 1975In Belgium, a royal decree abolishes the ‘gypsy cards’.

27 October 1979On the initiative of the German Sinti and Roma civil rights movement, the first international commemoration ceremony is held on the grounds of Bergen-Belsen memorial site with around 2,000 participants, including 500 Sinti and Roma.

26 August 1981The Bundestag establishes a hardship fund in Germany for persecuted persons of non-Jewish faith. One-off payments are granted primarily to Sinti and Roma who have not yet received compensation.

10 May 1984The archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Arolsen, Germany, are closed to research and the public.

4 September 1988A memorial stele is unveiled at the site of the former detention camp in Montreuil-Bellay, France, on the initiative of survivor Jean-Louis Bauer, among others.

18 February 1989In the fight for a permanent right to stay in Germany, Roma organise a hunger strike in the ‘House of Documents’, the exhibition space of the Neuengamme Memorial, Germany, which ends after about two weeks.

28 August 1989Several hundred Roma occupy parts of the grounds of the Neuengamme concentration camp memorial in Germany to fight for a permanent right to stay in Germany. The police clear the protest camp after about five weeks.

5 May 1990In the Netherlands, a monument for the persecuted and murdered Sinti and Roma is unveiled in The Hague.

6 May 1990Artist Gunter Demnig traces the path from the former detention camp to the rails on which the deportation trains left Cologne, Germany, with markers reading ‘May 1940—1000 Roma and Sinti.’

7 April 1991A group of Romani and non-Romani intellectuals founds the Museum of Romani Culture in Brno (Czechoslovakia).

21 August 1991Yad Vashem honours the Kosovan Romni Hajrija Imeri-Mihaljić as ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ for saving the life of the Jewish girl Ester-Stela Acević.

7 December 1991Laying of a memorial stele at the former detention camp in Jargeau, France.

1 January 1993The Czechoslovakian state ceases to exists. Its territory is now divided into the Czech and the Slovak Republics.

16 May 1993Representatives of the Rom and Cinti Union e. V. announce that they will occupy the grounds of the Neuengamme concentration camp memorial as a ‘place of refuge’ from the danger of expulsion. A massive police presence prevents the plan; a vigil by Roma on an access road lasts for a two-week period.

16 May 1993In Beek in the Netherlands, a monument is unveiled for the Franz family.

7 May 1995The official inauguration of the Joods Museum van Deportatie en Verzet / Musée juif de la Déportation et de la Résistance [Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance] takes place at the site of the former ‘SS transit camp’ in Mechelen, Belgium.

13 May 1995The Museum of Romani Culture (Czech Republic) unveils a monument at the mass cemetery of inmates of the former ‘Zigeunerlager’ in Lety near Písek.

3 June 1995A memorial plaque commemorating the internment of Sinti and Roma in Mechelen and their deportation is affixed to the façade of the former ‘SS transit camp’ in the Dossin barracks in Mechelen, Belgium.

20 August 1995The first official commemoration at the former ‘Zigeunerlager’ in Hodonín near Kunštát (Czech Republic) is held by the Museum of Romani Culture.

17 August 1997The Museum of Romani Culture (Czech Republic) unveils a monument at the mass cemetery of inmates of the former ‘Zigeunerlager’ in Hodonín near Kunštát.

16 May 1998The Museum of Romani Culture (Czech Republic), in cooperation with the municipal authorities in Hodonín near Kunštát and Černovice, unveils a memorial plaque at the municipal cemetery in Černovice above the still unmarked graves of the victims of the former ‘Zigeunerlager’ in Hodonín near Kunštát.

29 October 1998In Magdeburg, Germany, a memorial to the Sinti and Roma deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp is unveiled in front of the cathedral.

1 March 1999In the Netherlands, the Caravans Act introduced in 1918 is repealed. One effect of this is that a number of old caravan sites gradually disappear.

9 April 1999Inauguration of a commemorative plaque on the former camp of Arc-et-Senans, France.

2 August 2000With the establishment of the ‘Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future’ (EVZ) in Germany, compensation for forced labour is made possible for the first time; Sinti and Roma who do not live in Germany can also apply for compensation.

30 May 2000On the initiative of historian Ctibor Nečas, a commemorative plaque is placed on one of the original buildings of the former assembly point for deported Roma on Masná Street in Brno (Czech Republic).

10 March 2001The city of Cologne, Germany, erects a memorial plaque near the former detention camp in Cologne.

13 May 2002At the municipal cemetery in the town of Mirovice (Czech Republic), where victims of the former ‘Zigeunerlager’ Lety near Pisek are buried, the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust places a memorial plaque with the names of the deceased.

17 December 2003The Bund Deutscher Berufsboxer (German Professional Boxing Association), Germany, adds the boxer Johann Wilhelm ‘Rukeli’ Trollmann to the list of champions, thereby cancelling the revocation of his title in 1933.

22 April 2007The Museum of Romani Culture (Czech Republic) opens a permanent exhibition hall dedicated to the topic of the Nazi genocide of Roma and Sinti.

6 May 2007The first and only monument to the murdered Roma of Estonia, initiated by the Romani Association of North Estonia, is unveiled at Kalevi-Liiva.

27 November 2007The archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, Germany, will be reopened to research and the public due to public pressure.

1 March 2009In Magdeburg, Germany, a memorial is unveiled on the site of the former detention camp.

28 December 2009The Czech state, through the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports, purchases in Hodonín near Kunštát a site of the former ‘Zigeunerlager’ from a private owner.

9 June 2010A temporary memorial to Johann Wilhelm ‘Rukeli’ Trollmann in the form of a boxing ring is opened in Berlin, Germany, and is subsequently shown in other cities.

27 January 2011In Germany, survivor Zoni Weisz, Netherlands, addresses the Bundestag in Berlin.

3 May 2012In the Netherlands, the performance of the ‘Requiem for Auschwitz’, composed by Roger ‘Moreno’ Rathgeb, is conducted in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam.

8 May 2012The names of the members of the Lagrené family murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp are inscribed on the war memorial in the town of Flers-en-Escrebieux, France.

27 January 2013Sinti and Roma associations erect memorial plaques on the sites of the former concentration camps (campo di concentramento) in Tossicia and Agnone, Italy.

16 August 2013In Hodonín near Kunštát, the mass cemetery of the inmates of the former ‘Zigeunerlager’ is declared a state cultural monument thanks to the initiative of the Museum of Romani Culture (Czech Republic).

20 March 2014The Swedish government sets up a commission against antigypsyism ( Swedish: Kommissionen mot Antiziganism), which is active until 2016.

17 September 2014A memorial to the Romani and Jewish victims from Brno, who were deported and murdered between 1939 and 1945, is unveiled in Brno (Czech Republic).

27 January 2016In the United States, survivor Zoni Weisz, Netherlands, addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

17 April 2016A memorial to the Sinti and Roma murdered in the Flossenbürg concentration camp in Germany is unveiled on the anniversary of the liberation.

30 September 2014In the Czech Republic, two Stolpersteine (Stumbling Stones) are placed on the site of the former Romani ‘colony’ in Černovice, Brno to commemorate the couple Jan and Amália Daniel, murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau. These are thought to be the first stumbling stones for the victims of the Nazi genocide of the Roma in Central and Eastern Europe.

23 November 2017After decades of protest by survivors, their descendants, and activists, the Czech State buys the pig farm in Lety near Písek, operating on the site of the former ‘Zigeunerlager’.

25 January 2018The Museum of Romani Culture (Czech Republic) becomes an administrator of the memorial on the territory of the former ‘Zigeunerlager’ in Hodonín near Kunštát.

17 May 2018Activists and relatives of former internees take part in a commemoration ceremony in Agnone, Italy, in memory of the Roma and Sinti interned in the former concentration camp (campo di concentramento).

25 June 2018Seven wooden crosses are placed on the site of a former detention camp for Sinti and Roma in Kunratická Street, Liberec, (Czech Republic).

5 October 2018Thanks to the initiative of the Associazione Thèm Romanó, a cultural association, there is a stone sculpture by Tonino Santeusanio in the Parco delle Memorie in Lanciano, in the province of Chieti, Italy, which commemorates the Samudaripen.

8 November 2018On the initiative of the Association of Roma Representatives of the Liberec Region (Czech Republic), a Stolperstein [Stumbling Stone] is laid in the central square of Liberec for one local Sinti victim who was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

25 April 2019A memorial plaque is placed on the building of the former concentration camp (campo di concentramento) for women in Casacalenda, Italy.

27 April 2019Inauguration of a stele at the former camp of Moisdon-la-Rivière, France.

13 September 2019On the initiative of the Association of Roma Representatives of the Liberec Region (Czech Republic), two Stolpersteine [Stumbling Stones] are laid in the central square of Liberec for two local Sinti victims who were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

27 January 2020In Den Bosch in the Netherlands, a monument is unveiled in memory of the Sinti and Roma who were deported and murdered.

7 March 2020In the Czech Republic, two Stolpersteine (Stumbling Stones) are laid in the Žebětín district in Brno with the names of Jana Danielová and her daughter Anastázie Danielová, two local Romani residents who perished in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

15 July 2021In Hodonín near Kunštát, the Museum of Romani Culture (Czech Republic) opens to the public a memorial with a permanent exhibition on the site of the former ‘Zigeunerlager’.

18 January 2023The first stumbling stone in Italy commemorating Sinti or Roma is laid in Trieste. It is dedicated to the Sinto Romano Held (1927–1948).

27 January 2023A memorial plaque is placed on the building of the former Vinchiaturo concentration camp (campo di concentramento), Italy, which was set up in August 1940.

22 February 2024In Liberec, Czech Republic, a Memorial is placed on the site of the former detention camp for Sinti and Roma at Kunratická street.

12 April 2024In Lety near Písek, the Museum of Romani Culture (Czech Republic) opens a memorial with a permanent exhibition on the site of the former ‘Zigeunerlager’.