The Dachau hunger strike and German recognition
German Sinti go on hunger strike at the Dachau concentration camp memorial to protest continued police surveillance and the denial of their genocide; two years later the West German government recognises it.
- The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies — Guenter Lewy, Oxford University Press (2000)
- I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies — Yaron Matras, Allen Lane (2014)
In April 1980, over Easter, a group of German Sinti, among them concentration-camp survivors and the young activist Romani Rose, began a hunger strike at the memorial site of the Dachau concentration camp. They protested that police in Bavaria were still using “Gypsy” registries compiled under the Nazis, and that the genocide of their families had never been recognised. The protest drew national attention. In 1982 Romani Rose became chairman of the new Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, and in March that year Chancellor Helmut Schmidt received its delegation and acknowledged that the Nazi persecution of Sinti and Roma had been genocide on racial grounds.
- The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies — Guenter Lewy, Oxford University Press (2000)
- I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies — Yaron Matras, Allen Lane (2014)
Why it matters today
The hunger strike marked the birth of a Romani civil-rights movement in Western Europe and showed that Roma could change official memory by organising. It led to the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, still the strongest Romani organisation in Europe.