Timelines

Roma and Sinti associations and organizations had already begun forming in the 1950s. Their main objective was to assist the survivors of Nazi persecution in qualifying for state reparations while advancing the process of bringing their former persecutors to justice (see also: Federal Court of Justice of Germany decision: no compensation to Roma and Sinti for their persecution under the Nazi regime, 1956). Later, they began to fight for the civil rights and equal treatment of Sinti and Roma in Germany. A milestone was the founding of the Association of German Sinti in 1971. With targeted actions, provocations and demonstrations, and the support of sympathizers and allies, they succeeded in bringing the unrecognized genocide and the perpetuated discrimination to wider public attention. A demonstration in front of the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp Memorial site in 1979 and a hunger strike held in the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial site in 1980 both succeeded in attracting major national and international attention.

In 1971, the first World Romani Congress was convened in London. The phrase “opreroma!” (“Roma, rise up!”) was chosen as its official motto. The selection of the terms “Roma” and “Romani” as official self-designations was furthermore intended to supersede outside labels and achieve a new sense of collective self-confidence. At the second World Romani Congress, the International Romani Union was established as a confederation of numerous national and regional organizations. In 1981 the third World Congress convened in Göttingen, Germany. Faced with a sustained pattern of human rights violations, 300 delegates from 22 countries demanded the application of the Helsinki Declaration to Roma and Sinti. This Congress also formed the basis for the fusion of the then nine separate Sinti and Roma organizations existing in Germany into the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, with its headquarters in Heidelberg. The chief goals of the Central Council included the recognition of the Nazi genocide, an end to the unbroken pattern of criminalization, including discriminatory special registration practices, imposed by the police, and a general compensation accord for German Sinti and Roma. Since its founding, the chair of the Central Council has been Romani Rose.

Faced with massive public pressure, in March 1982 West Germany’s Federal Chancellor at the time, Helmut Schmidt, officially recognized the mass-murder of Sinti and Roma as an act of genocide perpetrated “for reasons of race.” Outside the scope of existing legislation, the German Bundestag ordered an individual payment of 5,000 DM to be made to victims of the Nazi regime not yet compensated and in positions of “exceptional need.” From 1985 on, the Central Council effected a fundamental transformation of the existing discriminatory compensation practices and successfully overturned decisions made by the compensation authorities in 3,200 individual cases.

Years of legal struggle between the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma and ministries of the interior at both the federal and state level brought the racist methods, in some cases adopted directly from the Third Reich (and, after 1945, often implemented by the same former SS-personnel), of “special registration” for Sinti and Roma in Germany to public attention. In 1983, the Rom and Cinti Union was established, representing the interests and needs of all Sinti and Roma living in Germany. The Union has supported the Roma migrants who have come to Germany in growing numbers as laborers or refugees and displaced persons since the 1960s and who, as a rule, do not belong to the Sinti sub-group.

Since 1995, Sinti and Roma have been officially recognized in Germany as a national minority, with Romanes as their official language.