The Jews Weren't the Only Ones who Suffered during WWII

The Jews Weren’t the Only Ones

My name is Maria. My family was deported from our home near Hamburg in 1940. I was 19 years old. It was scary. Many people survived the ordeal, but I could remember a great number more were killed. The Jews were not the only people the Nazi’s despised. They wanted all of us who were “asocials”, including Romanichal Gypsies like my family, to be gone from the Father Land. The difference between me and those who remember what happened is this; they survived. I didn’t.

I lived a quiet enough life growing up. My family was one of the travelling Romani families. We lived in a small wagon, and I was the oldest of five. I had four brothers. My father sold various animal foods in an attempt to survive, and he did well. When the Nazi’s came to power, Father told us that all would be well. They were good people. They would fix Germany. Oh, Father, how wrong you were.

At first, everything was as it was. Then we were rounded up, and taken to an open field outside Berlin. We had to make our little wagon a little home. I was 12. I can remember that my brothers were forced to have a surgery, even though they were little. I learned later that they were sterilized.

We spent seven years there. My father was deported in 1938, but he made a match and saw me wed by the end of 1937. My husband was a gentle man, who had been a blacksmith. He helped fix everyone’s wagons when it was needed. His name matters no more than mine does. He died three days before I did, while he was in Auschwitz.

I had two children in that time. My husband was sterilized so that we could not have anymore. I loved my boys dearly. When they were sent to Auschwitz, it was the last time I saw them alive. Both of my boys were killed within tw...

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..., the Black for Gypsies; they were created to shame and embarrass them. People now have new words that stick with these people just like the triangles. “Fag” “Retard” and so many more were created to attack people. Hate exists, no matter what we do. Just think before you act.

Bibliography

"The Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims." Non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

"Persecution of Roma (Gypsies) in Prewar Germany, 1933–1939." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 10 June 2013. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.

"Genocide of European Roma (Gypsies), 1939–1945." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 10 June 2013. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

"Ravensbrück." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 10 June 2013. Web. 08 Mar. 2014.