The Murder Of The 500,000 Children Of Sinti And Roma By The Nazis And Their Allies And Collaborators.

These sweet-faced children were the test subjects in a cold-blooded research project aimed at proving that members of the Sinti minority were racially inferior.

In the fall of 1942, a young researcher, Eva Justin, spent six weeks at an orphanage in southwest Germany, living among the children. 

Justin had previously worked under Dr. Robert Ritter, whose findings helped facilitate the persecution and mass murder of thousands of Roma and Sinti, then called "Gypsies."

As she pursued a doctorate in anthropology at the University of Berlin, Justin's hypothesis was that Roma and Sinti, as represented by this group of about 40 children, were inferior and could not be assimilated into German society.

While Justin's research was still progressing, the December 1942 so-called “Auschwitz decree” ordered those of so-called mixed “Gypsy” blood to be deported to Auschwitz. Justin needed her test subjects to remain alive while she finished her work, so they were initially spared.

As soon as she earned her doctorate in spring 1944, arrangements were made for the children to be deported to Auschwitz.

 On this day in August 1944, the “Gypsy camp” at the Auschwitz complex was shut down and nearly all of the children from the research project were gassed with the rest of the Sinti and Roma. They were among the 250,000 to 500,000 Roma and Sinti murdered by the Nazis and their allies and collaborators.

Photo: Archive of the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma

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