On the night of August 2-3, 1944, mothers with small children, elderly and sick people are murdered in the gas chambers of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. This was also the end of the so-called “gypsy camp”.

That night alone the SS killed around 4,300 people – another black day of the genocide of the Sindi and Roma in Europe.

The National Socialist Germany murdered a total of 500,000 people of Europe’s largest minority – many died in camps and ghettos, in gas chambers and firing squads, in forced labor, starvation or disease.

Since 2015 the EU has chosen 2 August as a day of remembrance for the Sindi and Roma genocide.

“I pray this never happens again”

Nazi persecution did not only take place in Auschwitz, but also in many other places throughout Europe. Christian Pfeil is one of the lucky ones: as a baby he managed to survive the genocide, probably because he, his parents and siblings, unlike other more distant relatives, were not sent to Auschwitz. The 80-year-old speaks as often as he can about the persecution suffered by the Sindi and Roma. Because, as he tells DW, “otherwise so many people would have died in vain.”

Pfeil speaks in school classes, at the United Nations memorial day in New York, Berlin, Brussels, Auschwitz. “I hope that future generations learn from history and I pray that something like this never happens again,” he said in 2022 in Auschwitz.

The tragic living conditions in the ghetto

On May 16, 1940, the Nazis took Pfeil’s parents and siblings from their home in Trier and took them to a concentration camp in Cologne and then to Poland, which was then under German occupation.

At the beginning of 1944 Pfail is born in the Lublin ghetto. The family suffers from starvation, forced labor and torture such as mock executions. In the evenings when the SS officers get together and party, they order Pfeil’s father to play music for them. In return they give him their scraps – and so the family can and does survive.

The “second persecution” after the end of the war

After liberation from the Red Army the Pfeil family returns to Trier. But discrimination and persecution against them continued even after 1945.

Pfile’s relatives are seriously ill and unable to work. That is why they depend on the support of the state.

But the people who were responsible for their deportation during the Nazi regime are still in the public services. And now the family is forced to beg for help from these people. “They were very disappointed that we were still alive,” says Pfail.

Fight against anti-Gypsyism

In the decades that followed until today, a lot has changed. Germany now has an anti-Gypsy commissioner, Mehmet Daimaguler, who is responsible for coming up with proposals to tackle racism.

However, according to the Center for Reporting and Information on Anti-Gypsyism, many racist attitudes towards Sindi and Roma still take place: in 2023 the Center recorded over 1,200 incidents, almost twice as many as in 2022 – including ten incidents of extreme exercise violence – while in 2024 a Sindhi family in Trier reported that strangers painted a swastika on their door.

That is why it is very important to raise the awareness of young people: “The radical right is advancing in Europe”, warns Pfail. “And we must stand up to her. And we have to educate the new generation as well.”

Edited by: Giorgos Passas