The arrival to power of Nazi in Germany and the subsequent Second World War brought the worst to Rroma. Rroma and Jews were the only to ethnic groups singled out by the German Nazis for total extermination. In 1938, Heinrich Himmler passed a new law called "Bekämpfung der Zigeunerplague" - Fighting against the Gypsy Plague. Earlier, the Germans had rounded up German Rroma and dispatched them to concentration camps, mostly Sinti. In Austria, after 1938's Anschluss many Rroma from the Burgenland, where they had been settled by Maria Theresia were also sent to KZs. They were locked up in camps like Dachau, Buchenwald, and Ravensbrück in Germany, Mauthausen, Lackenbach and Salzburg in Austria. These Rroma were singled out for a slow death through starvation and hard work or for outright murder.
In 1939, Hitler invaded Poland and in 1941 the USSR. Many Rroma lived in these countries. The Nazi, for Rroma as for Jews, developed a new method of murder. The Einsatztruppen (Special Troops) murdered the Rroma where they lived, in villages, cities, on the road or in the woods. Contrary to concentration camps, these troops left no evidence behind, no scrupulously held records. It is therefore difficult to know how many Rroma were murdered by these Komandos.
In Poland, the Germans created new concentration camps. The best known, Auschwitz-Birkenau, had a Zigeunerlager, special camp for Gypsy. Another one is the Litzmannstadt ghetto, a Jewish and Rroma ghetto in the Polish city of Lodz. Needless to say that in both, many thousand Rroma were murdered. In the Gypsy camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, we have evidence about the Rroma who were murdered. They came from Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, Moravia, Poland, Russia and many other places, wherever they fell in the Nazi's hands. The camps record contains the names and other information about 20'943 Rroma. Many more, as is now known, were simply immediately sent to the gas chambers upon arrival in the camp. For these, as in the case of Jews, no records were made. Polish Rroma until now are singing a song about these horrors:
They brought us in by the gate
They had us out through the chimney.
The murder of Rroma happened in other camps as well. Step by step, others, such as the Croatian fascists, "ustasha", followed the German lead. In their camp, Jasenovac, they exterminated many thousands Rroma from all over Yugoslavia.
In Romania, an action, still known in the Rroma minds as the "transmission", was undertaken. Rroma were sent to a slow death through work and starvation in what was called Transnistria, the Ukrainian territory under Romanian control. In Bulgaria, many Rroma were arrested in villages and cities and were interned in camps, for forced labour, side by side with Jews.
People who have analysed the Rroma Holocaust during the Second World War now claim that a minimum of 500'000 Rroma were murdered. Others advance the higher number of 2'500'000 victims. The truth is not known. Analysing records (camps, exhumations, for example in the Baltis States etc.), yield a very low number (around 200'000). This same discrepancy between actual victims and "official" records exists for Jews also. Simply, in the case of Jews, pre-war population records exist, while in many countries, one can only guess at the total Gypsy pre-War population. The most important fact should not be obscured by a controversy on numbers: Rroma were murdered for their ethnic appurtenance, along the same lines as Jews. Even now, few people know about or even have heard about this Rroma Holocaust. There are but a few Rroma left who have survived the horrors of the concentration camps and most do not want to speak about this period.