Study Guide - Menemsha Films

with the rumor that a Roma attempted to steal the nails so that Christ could not be crucified, butwas only able to grab one.The Christian genocide against Witches during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance was alsodirected against the Roma. The courts seized and imprisoned them in Witches' prisons, oftenwithout even bothering to record their names.The Diet of Augsburg ruled that Christians could legally kill Roma. Meanwhile, the courts wereclosed to Roma who were injured by Christians.In 1721, Emperor Karl VI of what is now Germany ordered total genocide of the Roma. "GypsyHunts" were organized to track down and exterminate them.Roma were rounded up and imprisoned in Spain during 1749. They were considered a danger tosociety. A pardon was granted in 1763, and the Roma were released in 1765.In 1792, 45 Roma were tortured and executed for the murder of some Hungarians, who were infact alive and who observed the executions.It is believed that as much as half of the Roma in Europe were enslaved, from the 14th centuryuntil Romani slavery was abolished in the mid-19th century.Persecution of the Roma in the 20th century:They have suffered severe persecution in ancient times, and this has continued to the presentday:During the 1920's, in the Weimar Republic in Germany, the Roma were seriously oppressed.They were forbidden to use parks or public baths. Roma were required to register with thepolice. Many were sent to work camps "for reasons of public security."When the Nazis took power in the early 1930s, the Roma were further persecuted under the"Nuremberg Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor" In 1937, Heinrich Himmlerissued a decree "The Struggle Against the Gypsy Plague," which increased police monitoring ofthe Roma.During the Nazi Holocaust, they were declared to be "subhuman". In 1941-JUL, theEinsatzkommandos were instructed to "kill all Jews, Gypsies and mental patients." A fewmonths later, Himmler ordered that all Roma be deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau forextermination.Sybil Milton, a former Senior Historian of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that500,000 Roma and Sinti persons were executed during the Nazi Holocaust. This number issupported by the Romas and Sinti Center in Heidelberg. The Roma refer to this genocide as the"O Porrajamos" -- literally "The Great Devouring."There are about 5,000 Roma survivors of the Nazi concentration camps who are still living.Because of continuing discrimination, they did not share in any of the hundreds of millions ofdollars given to other survivors of the Holocaust.Above, copyright © 1998 to 2009 by Ontario Consultants on Religious ToleranceOriginally written: 1998-JULLatest update: 2009-AUG-29As Author: Seen Through B.A. Robinson These Eyes Page 16Dr. Josef Mengele – the Angel of Death (1911-1979)Much debate is focused on Josef Mengele, the infamous doctor of Auschwitz, commonly