A Gypsy In Auschwitz: How I Survived the Horrors of the ‘Forgotten Holocaust’

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I knew about the horrors that all the Jewish people faced but I never realised that the Gypsys' took on their plights as well.

This book is a necessary reminder that no amount of good behaviour, studiousness or military service could make up for having Sinti or Roma blood. This is a strikingly honest book and Otto painfully discloses how the constant exposure to violence and death dehumanised everybody in the concentration camp, prisoners and guards alike. In total, around five hundred thousand Sinti and Roma fell victim to the Nazis‘ frenzy of racial hatred.Otto finds, like many other Roma and Sinti survivors, that people will say their possessions, businesses and homes could not have been stolen because "Gypsies" couldn't possibly have ever owned anything. Otto describes his life living mostly with his loving grandmother who meted out unique "punishment" when necessary. There are some truly heinous crimes against humanity described here which should horrify anybody reading this book. I loved following Ottos journey and getting a true reflection of everything before and during his time in Auschwitz. The story is powerful and emotional , one everyone should take the time to read, because as those that suffered and survived die, the risk is people will forget, so it is upon us to keep those events alive, so they never happen again.

Post-war Holocaust generations are aware of this and the impact, despite often never being privy to the real details and finer details of said trauma. He was 9 when he was sent to the Roma and Sinti camp in Marzahn, ahead of the 1936 Olympic Games, and 16 when he was sent to Auschwitz. I feel almost as if he whitewashed some of his experiences to make them less gruesome to the reader. Otto noticed that his family began to be broken up and people would often disappear, some were also ‘sent East’.He begins by remembering a time when his family were poor but happy before the gradual eradication of their rights, the arrest of Sinti and Roma just prior to the 1936 Olympic Games and their forced move to the Berlin-Marzahn labour camp.