Camp Westerbork, also known as Westerbork transit camp, was a Nazi transit camp in the province of Drenthe in the Northeastern Netherlands, during World War II. It was located in the municipality of Westerbork, current-day Midden-Drenthe. Camp Westerbork was used as a staging location for sending Jews to concentration camps elsewhere.
The Romani Holocaust or the Romani genocide—also known as the Porajmos, the Pharrajimos meaning the hard times, and the Samudaripen —was the effort by Nazi Germany and its World War II allies to commit ethnic cleansing and eventually genocide against Europe's Romani people during the Holocaust era.
The Sinti are a subgroup of Romani people mostly found in Germany and Central Europe that number around 200,000 people. They were traditionally itinerant, but today only a small percentage of Sinti remain unsettled. In earlier times, they frequently lived on the outskirts of communities. The Sinti of Central Europe are closely related to the group known as Manouche in France. They speak the Sinti-Manouche variety of Romani, which exhibits strong German influence. While people from Sindh were mentioned in 1100 by the Arab chronicler Meidani, it is unclear if Sindhi people are the ancestors of modern-day Sinti.
Despite Dutch neutrality, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 as part of Fall Gelb. On 15 May 1940, one day after the bombing of Rotterdam, the Dutch forces surrendered. The Dutch government and the royal family relocated to London. Princess Juliana and her children sought refuge in Ottawa, Canada until after the war.
Jewish resistance under Nazi rule took various forms of organized underground activities conducted against German occupation regimes in Europe by Jews during World War II. According to historian Yehuda Bauer, Jewish resistance was defined as actions that were taken against all laws and actions acted by Germans. The term is particularly connected with the Holocaust and includes a multitude of different social responses by those oppressed, as well as both passive and armed resistance conducted by Jews themselves.
A Stolperstein is a sett-size, ten-centimetre (3.9 in) concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution.
Holocaust trains were railway transports run by the Deutsche Reichsbahn national railway system under the control of Nazi Germany and its allies, for the purpose of forcible deportation of the Jews, as well as other victims of the Holocaust, to the Nazi concentration, forced labour, and extermination camps.
Romani Rose is a Romany activist and head of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma. He lost 13 relatives in the Holocaust.
The Central Council of German Sinti and Roma is a German Romanies rights group based in Heidelberg, Germany. It is headed by Romani Rose, who lost 13 of his close family in the Holocaust.
The Mechelen transit camp, officially SS-Sammellager Mecheln in German, also known as the Dossin barracks, was a detention and deportation camp established in a former army barracks at Mechelen in German-occupied Belgium. It served as a point to gather Belgian Jews and Romani ahead of their deportation to concentration and extermination camps in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is a museum on the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Oświęcim, Poland.
Árpád Weisz was a Hungarian Olympic football player and manager. Weisz was Jewish, and was murdered with his wife and children by the Nazis during the Holocaust in World War II at Auschwitz.
Eva Justin was a German anthropologist who was active during the Nazi era. She specialised in scientific racism. Her work contributed to the Nazi crimes against the Sinti and Roma peoples.
The deportation of Roma migrants from France was subject of intense political debate in France and internationally in 2009 and 2010. After two fatal incidents, President of France Nicolas Sarkozy vowed in July 2010 to evict at least half of the 539 Romani squatted land camps. The Government of France initiated a program to repatriate thousands of Romanian and Bulgarian Romani, as part of the crackdown. Between July and September 2010, at least 51 Romani camps were demolished, and France has repatriated at least 1,230 Romani to their countries of origin.
The Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism is a memorial in Berlin, Germany. The monument is dedicated to the memory of the 220,000 – 500,000 people murdered in the Porajmos – the Nazi genocide of the European Sinti and Roma peoples. It was designed by Dani Karavan and was officially opened on 24 October 2012 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the presence of President Joachim Gauck.
Ferenc Snétberger is a Hungarian jazz guitarist.
The Roma Holocaust Memorial Day is a memorial day that commemorates the victims of the Romani genocide (Porajmos), which resulted in the murder of an estimated 220,000 – 500,000 Romani people by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. The date of 2 August was chosen for the memorial because on the night of 2 – 3 August 1944, 2,897 Roma, mostly women, children and elderly people, were killed in the Gypsy family camp (Zigeunerfamilienlager) at Auschwitz concentration camp. Some countries have chosen to commemorate the genocide on different dates.
Margarete Kraus was a Roma woman who was persecuted during the Porajmos, imprisoned at Auschwitz and Ravensbruck. Her experience was recorded in later life by the photographer Reimar Gilsenbach.
The Romani are an ethnic group that live in the Netherlands; part of the broader Romani diaspora. Though they represent a small portion of the national population, the plight of those in the Roma community has received ongoing national attention.
Kurt Schlesinger was a German Jewish administrative director of Westerbork transit camp during World War II.
