Remembrance Day for the Genocide of Roma and Sinti

On the occasion of the international day of remembrance for the genocide of Roma and Sinter during the Second World War, we have taken a closer look at the history of the Roma in Denmark. A dark chapter is looming.

By museum director Janus Møller Jensen, Ph.D.

Today, the world commemorates the genocide of Roma and Sinti during the Second World War. Between 2 and 3 August 1944, it is estimated that approx. 3.000 Roma and Sinti murdered in KZ-Auschwitz-Birkenau and it is estimated that between 200.000 and 500.000 were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II.

In Denmark, Roma have notoriously not been welcomed. The Aliens Act from 1536 stated that they had to leave Denmark within three months. King Christian III ordered a few years later that the remaining Roma were not allowed to travel in the country and that people who gave them shelter could be punished. The Roma were to be considered outlaws, which ultimately meant that they could be killed without consequence!

In 1736, King Christian the 6th decided that all Roma should be banished from the Danish kingdom. In the Poor Law from 1736, it is stated that the Roma who do not leave the kingdom "...must be chased from place to place for so long that they are completely outside the country's borders". Women and men who did not leave Denmark voluntarily could be imprisoned and their children taken from them. The Poor Law of 1736 proves to be fatal for the Roma almost 200 years later.

The introduction of the Nuremberg Laws in the mid-1930s made Roma and Sinti (in addition to the disabled and homosexuals) the targets of persecution. In 1934, a group of Roma tried to come to Denmark from Germany near the border at Padborg. They had left Norway four years earlier and were now trying to return there. They were flatly rejected at the border because the Danish authorities had contacted the Norwegians, who announced that the Roma were not welcome in Norway either. They were then sent by train to a labor camp in Hamburg, most of which ended up in the extermination camp, Auschwitz. Of a group of 68 who tried to cross the border, only 12 survived.

It was not only Roma who were rejected at the border with Denmark. The refugee policy of the 1930s was extremely restrictive. After the introduction of the Nuremberg Laws in Germany, the Danish side was more aware of the flow of German Jews who sought the country's borders and wanted a residence permit. The Danish side tried to prevent this as much as possible, and the result was that only approx. 1500 residence permits for German-Jewish refugees. Many of those who were refused, in some cases tried to travel on to South America or the United States. Others were sent back to Germany to an uncertain fate, some resulting in death. This was the case for Anna Philipsohn, who applied for a residence permit in 1938 – her brother, Grosserer Ludwig Dellheim, who was a Danish citizen and resident in Charlottenlund, received this letter on 12 December 1938 with a refusal of the residence permit. Anna Philipsohn was deported to a ghetto in Riga in 1942, where she died half a year later.

It was not until the beginning of the 1950s, with the Immigration Act, that the Danish side could, not by law, force Roma out of the country. However, authorities and the police could arrest them - sometimes encouraged by the local population, as there was a tendency to dislike the Roma, and their non-resident life often led to violations of other Danish legislation.

We only see in the late 1960s that some arriving Roma are granted citizenship. Here, too, we can draw parallels to Danish-Jewish history, since in the period 1967-1972 up to 3.000 Polish-Jewish refugees were received. At this time, Denmark led a more lenient refugee policy, which was born from the very restrictive refugee policy of the 1930s, in which rejections sent people back to uncertain fates, which in several cases resulted in death.