05
THE DEPORTATION OF ITALIAN ROMA AND SINTI PEOPLE TO NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS 1943-1945
After the armistice of 8 September 1943, the birth of the Italian Social Republic and the Adriatisches Küstenland area (the Adriatic Coast - consisting of the provinces of Udine, Gorizia, Pula, Rijeka and Ljubljana) marked the beginning of deportations to the SS camps. Roma and Sinti people, stopped during the passage of their caravans, were arrested due to being 'gypsies' and were considered hereditarily antisocial and dangerous. They were first sent to prisons and later deported to the camps of Dachau, Buchenwald, Flossenburg, Ravensbrück, Bergen Belsen and Mauthausen, where they were registered from 1944.
La storia di Romano Held e del fratello Berto.
Portrait of Romano Held / Stolperstein, in memory of Romano Held
Romano Held was born in San Pier d'Isonzo, on 21 January 1927, to a family of Sinti musicians related to the Roma Hudorovic family. The Helds had always lived in the Trieste area until after the armistice of 1943, they moved to the mountains above Udine, in the Fagagna area, in the 1940s. On 1 May 1944, Romano Held was arrested as he was moving with his caravan in the Palmanova area. He was caught at 17 years old, thanks to an Italian collaborationist. He was then transferred to the prison in Udine, where he remained until 31 May 1944, when the prison documents indicated his 'release', a term that actually indicates his surrender for deportation.
Romano Held was on the convoy that left Trieste on 31 May 1944 bound for Dachau. He arrived at the lager on 2 June 1944. In Dachau, Romano Held was registered under number 69525. He was freed in that same lager by the American army. He returned to Italy and to Trieste, where he continued his work as a musician and reunited with his family, particularly with Alberto Berto Held - his brother who had been deported to Buchenwald. Romano Held died in 1948, due to poor health caused by his imprisonment.
The story of Alberto Berto Held and Romano Held was told by brothers Alberto and Rolando Suffer (Berto's sons and Romano's grandsons) in 2012.
Deportation to the SS camps. Knowing and recognising it
The map indicates the Nazi camps to which Italian Roma and Sinti people were deported between 1943 and 1945. The places marked are confirmed by archive documentation.
NAZI CAMPS
Nazi camps in which there were Sinti and Roma people who had been deported from Italy.
Auschwitz
A Nazi camp which was a symbol of the extermination of Sinti and Roma people. There were no Italian Sinti and Roma people in this camp.
Tap the map to zoom in
Romanian prisoners undergoing forced labour in Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, between 1941 and 1944 - Ushmm Archive
Roma survivors in the barracks of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, during liberation. Germany - after 15 April 1945. Ushmm Archive
“Remembrance against discrimination”
The Remembrance against discrimination project has made it possible to continue historical research on the deportation of Italian Roma and Sinti people to Nazi concentration camps between 1943 and 1945. Sinti and Roma people took part in the research and were able to recognise people from their communities on the lists of Italian deportees.
The research continues and these are some of their names and surnames through which it is possible to access the documents that reconstruct their stories.
