Romani Holocaust

A directive, not a roundup

On 15 November 1943 Heinrich Himmler issued a directive concerning Nazi policy toward Roma in the German-occupied Soviet territories.

It said settled Roma and people the Nazis classified as part-Roma were to be treated as local citizens, while itinerant Roma and part-Roma were to be placed 'on the same level as Jews' and sent to concentration camps.

No specific mass roundup on that date is established by the sources consulted. The event was the issuance of a policy directive, documented as an official instruction rather than a public announcement.

Not the order that filled Auschwitz

This was an adjustment to policy in occupied Soviet territory, not the original or Reich-wide deportation order. Himmler had issued that order on 16 December 1942, and family deportations to Auschwitz began in February 1943.

Roma and Sinti were already being imprisoned and murdered when the November directive was written. Approximately 23,000 Roma and Sinti were deported to Auschwitz in total, where approximately 21,000 died or were murdered.

What the line actually turned on

The operative distinction was perceived settlement or mobility — not, as often described, whether Nazi authorities considered someone insufficiently 'pure-blooded.'

The quoted English wording renders Nazi terminology; the slur in the original directive is not a name for Roma.

The total number of Roma murdered across Europe remains uncertain, because records are incomplete and victims were not always identified as Roma.