Ex-Prisoner Recalls When Music Stopped : Gypsy Holocaust Victims Are Eulogized

As a prisoner of Auschwitz, Sigmund Strochlitz remembers the sad, haunting music that drifted past the electrified wire that separated Gypsy families from other concentration camp inmates.

Just as vivid in his memory is the night the music stopped--42 years ago last month--when the 4,000 Gypsies in the camp where put to death by their Nazi captors. “In the morning, there was no more music, no more dancing, no more song,” Strochlitz said softly, “just stinking smoke in the air.”

On Tuesday, Strochlitz joined other members of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council on Capitol Hill for the first annual “Day of Remembrance” ceremony for the thousands of Gypsies murdered in World War II.

Seeking Public Awareness

In recent years, the Gypsy community has been actively seeking to increase public awareness of their tragic loss. They also have been pressing for official Gypsy representation on the presidentially appointed Holocaust council, which is expected to occur next year.

“So complete was the Nazi destruction of the Romani (Gypsy) people in Europe that few survived to tell the story,” said Ian Hancock, a professor of English and linguistics at the University of Texas who also serves as the U.S. delegate to the United Nations for the World Romani Union.

Recognition by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, Hancock said, “marks a turning point in our efforts to bring it to the attention of the nation and of the world.” The ceremony was sponsored by the council and the American Rom community.

“We have not done enough to make others listen to your voice of sadness. Your anguish must be recorded,” Elie Wiesel, chairman of the council, told the representatives of five Gypsy tribes who attended.

Half May Have Died

No one knows exactly how many Gypsies were killed in the Holocaust. Some historians estimate that as many as 500,000--more than half the Gypsy population of Europe--died at the hands of the Nazis.

The Nazi government targeted the Gypsies as “asocials” and sent them to concentration camps, where they were segregated from other prisoners, used for labor and medical experiments and then killed.

At the ceremony, Hungarian-born California Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo), a Holocaust survivor, urged the governments of East and West Germany to recognize the Gypsy “nightmare” of World War II and to help the descendants of those families to take their “long overdue and rightful place in all facets of society.”

James Merino, a Ventura resident who acts as a liaison officer between the Gypsy community of about 50,000 people in Los Angeles and local officials, was among those who came to participate in the ceremony.