Genocide of Sinti and Roma

On 12 August 1943, an unnamed relative from the “Hodonín Gypsy camp” wrote to Karel Holomek (1912-?): "Dear brother, I have to tell you that we are leaving on 21 August and we don't know for sure where to. If possible, I will write to you from there. Your sister and brother-in-law also send their regards." From August 1942, 1,400 Moravian Roma were deported to Hodonín u Kunštátu near Brno, where they suffered under extreme conditions: malnutrition, forced labour and violence. At least 207 people died of epidemics. Most of the others were deported to Auschwitz concentration camp in the summer of 1943 to be murdered. Karel Holomek was doing forced labour in a quarry at the time the card was written. A few days later, he was also deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp and in 1944 was deported from there via the Buchenwald concentration camp to the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, where all traces of him are lost.

The genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe was carried out at the same time as the Shoah. This genocide followed other ideological and racist criteria. With the war, the persecution of Sinti and Roma gradually expanded in occupied Europe from 1939/40, and the genocidal radicalisation began with the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Around 200,000 to 500,000 Sinti and Roma were murdered in mass shootings and camps.