In 1943, the Nazis created a specific section of the Auschwitz-Birkenhau camp designated the “Zigeunerlarger” or “Gypsy” camp. Around 23,000 Roma were deported to Auschwitz, of whom 21,000 were murdered in shootings and gas chambers.

The policy of genocide was made clear in a letter written by Himmler in 1944 stating that “the accomplished evacuation and isolation” of “Jews and Gypsies” meant that the initial directives against them were no longer necessary.

In part because so many Roma deaths went unrecorded, many families don’t know what happened to their relatives. Every week, the Wiener Holocaust Library’s researcher in charge of overlooking the ITS is contacted by people hoping to find out what happened to their loved ones.

What did happen to them was often gruesome. In 1938, Dr. Robert Ritter, head of the Racial Hygiene Research Center at the Reich Bureau for Health, began a project with the aim of analyzing the “racial characteristics” of Roma.

Link: https://time.com/5719540/roma-holocaust-remembrance/?fbclid=IwAR03LeVS5rTSgjYuP_4EgHIxUbSUKDmziKk3IprQyPJX1V-_PfubS0Tt_qU

Bulgaria’s Roma have been discriminated against in their own country for decades. Instead of support, hatred is what they are getting. The Corona pandemic has made things even worse, says Krassimir Kanev.

Sofia, a city of 1.5 million inhabitants, was a popular destination for Western European tourists before Corona hit. Those visitors photographed the giant Nevski Cathedral from all angles. They looked at 4,000-year-old stones at the ‘Serdica’ metro station and walked up and down Vitosha Boulevard, where they also consumed beverages and inexpensive meals.

Welcome to the E.U.

Bulgaria does not show certain parts of its capital to tourists. Even most locals do not know Fakulteta or Orlandovtsi, the two main Roma slums. What British, German, French or other visitors would see in those parts of the city, if they went there, looks like it was part of some banana republic. But Fakulteta is actually the European Union. Bulgaria joined on January 1st, 2007.

In those parts of Sofia, which nobody in Bulgaria wants to see, hear or think about, children wearing dirty clothes play in the mud. Many families live in huts without heating or sanitation. Most residents of the worst parts of those slums are not educated well or at all. Only few have jobs. And they are being discriminated in all walks of life.

Link: https://berlinspectator.com/2020/07/21/hated-incarcerated-evicted-discriminated-bulgarias-roma-minority/?fbclid=IwAR2wR-0G1QAVdF4P1P7T6T25oHZ1O9GpL4Mc3L_HBJNstMREYFKTlfixt8s