Sinti

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Sinti and Roma people, 1941

The Sinti (also Sinta or Sinte; masc. sing. Sinto; fem. sing. Sintesa) are a
Romani people of Central Europe.[1] They were traditionally itinerant, but today
only a small percentage of Sinti remain unsettled. In earlier times, they
frequently lived on the outskirts of communities. The Sinti of Central Europe
are closely related to the group known as Manouche in France. They speak the
Sinti-Manouche variety of Romani, which exhibits strong German influence.

Name

The origin of the name Sinti is disputed.

Some, including many Sinti themselves, believe it derives from Sindhi, the
name of a people of Sindh (a region in Pakistan), based on indications that
Romani peoples originated in the Indian subcontinent.[2][3] In addition to the
documented linguistic connections between Romani language and Sanskrit, a
recent study by Estonian and Indian researchers found genetic similarities
between European Romani men and Indian men in their sample.[4]

Others, including scholar Yaron Matras, argue that "Sinti" is a later term only in
use by the Sinti from the 18th century on and is likely a European loanword.[2][5]

History

The Sinti arrived in Germany and Austria in the Late Middle Ages along with
Romani from the Indian Subcontinent,[6] eventually splitting into two groups:
Eftavagarja ("the Seven Caravans") and Estraxarja ("from Austria").[7] They
arrived in Germany before 1540.[8] The two groups expanded, the Eftavagarja
into France, Portugal and Brazil, where they are called "Manouches", and the
Estraxarja into Italy and Central Europe, mainly what are now Croatia, Slovenia,
Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, eventually adopting
various regional names. In Italy they are present mainly in Piedmont region
(where in Piedmontese they are called Sinto, although the word for Romani
people is sìngher, as the Italian zingari), with some communities in Veneto and
Emilia Romagna as well.

Johann Trollmann, a German

Sinti boxer

The Holocaust

Sinti and Roma had migrated to Germany in the late 15th century. Nonetheless,
they were still generally regarded as beggars and thieves, and by 1899, the
police kept a central register on Romani people. The National Socialists
considered them racially inferior (see Nazism and race), and persecuted them
throughout Germany during the Nazi period—the Nuremberg Laws of 1935
often being interpreted to apply to them as well as the Jews.

Adolf Eichmann recommended that the Third Reich solve the "Gypsy Question"
simultaneously with the Jewish Question, resulting in the deportation of the
Sinti to clear room to build homes for ethnic Germans.[9] Some were sent to
Poland, or elsewhere (including some deported to Yugoslavia by the Hamburg
Police in 1939,[10]) others were confined to designated areas, and many were
eventually murdered in gas chambers.[11] Many Sinti and Roma were taken to
Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were put in a special section, called the "gypsy
camp". Dr. Josef Mengele often performed some of his infamous experiments
on Sinti and Roma. On August 2, 1944, the "gypsy camp" was closed, and
approximately 4,000 Sinti and Roma were gassed during the night of August
2–3 and burnt in the crematoria. August 2 is now commemorated as Roma
and Sinti Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In concentration camps, the Sinti were forced to wear either a black triangle,
indicating their classification as "asocial",[12] or a brown triangle, specifically
reserved for Romani people.

Deportation of Sinti and Roma in Asperg, 22 May 1940

Memorial for murdered Sinti in Düsseldorf-Lierenfeld

 Ravensburg, Memorial for Sinti murdered in Auschwitz

Memorial in Nuremberg across the street from address Frauentorgraben 49, where

on the 15 September 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were adopted in the ballroom of the
Industrial & Cultural Association clubhouse

Notable Sinti

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There are a number of Sinti notable for their contributions in music. Django
Reinhardt was a guitarist who fused traditional dance hall musettes with
American jazz in 1930s and 1940s. Along with Stéphane Grappelli and other
members of the Quintette du Hot Club de France, he founded the style of
music known as Gypsy jazz.

Other notable Sinti musicians include Schnuckenack Reinhardt, Drafi

Deutscher, and the jazz guitarists Jimmy Rosenberg and Paulus Schäfer. The
Sinto Häns'che Weiss produced a record in Germany in the 1970s in which he
sang about the Poraimos (Romani Holocaust) in his own language. Many
younger Germans first learned about this part of Holocaust history as a result
of this recording. Titi Winterstein and several members of Reinhardt's clan still
play traditional and modern Gypsy jazz. The jazz keyboardist Joe Zawinul was
also of Sinti descent.

Marianne Rosenberg is a successful Sinti/Roma-German singer. She is the

daughter of Auschwitz survivor Otto Rosenberg, who in 1936, at nine years of
age was placed in a concentration camp where his father, his grandmother,
and all his siblings were murdered. She sings mainly in German but has sung in
English, French, Italian, and the Sinti language. She finished tenth in the
German preselection for the 1975 Eurovision song contest with "Er gehört zu
mir". Her biography Kokolores is a bestseller in Europe.

Sinti are also notable for sporting achievements. Johann Trollmann won the
1933 light-heavyweight boxing championship of Germany but was stripped of
the title by the Nazis, who could not tolerate a "non-Aryan" champion. Trollman
was murdered in a concentration camp in 1943 by another inmate.[13]

List of notable Sinti

Oto Pestner (b. 1956), Slovenian singer of swing, jazz, Slovenian folk music,
gospel, best known for singing with the group New Swing Quartet.[14]

Manitas de Plata, musician

Django Reinhardt, musician

Schnuckenack Reinhardt, musician

Jimmy Rosenberg, musician

Marianne Rosenberg, musician and daughter of Otto Rosenberg

Otto Rosenberg (1927–2001), Holocaust survivor, author of A Gypsy in

Auschwitz (1999), activist, and founder of Sinti Union of Berlin and
Organization for German Sinti and Roma.[15][16]

Paulus Schäfer, musician

Johann Trollmann, boxer

Häns'che Weiss, musician

Titi Winterstein, musician

Joe Zawinul, musician

Carlo Karges , musician

See also

History of the Romani people

Romani people by country

Sindhi diaspora

Sinte Romani (language)

References

1. Martha Verdorfer: Sinti & Roma (in German)

2. Yaron Matras, "The Role of Language in Mystifying and Demystifying Gypsy

Identity" in: Nicholas Saul, Susan Tebbutt, The Role of the Romanies: Images
and Counter-images of "Gypsies"/Romanies in European Cultures, Liverpool
University Press (2004), ISBN 978-0-85323-679-5, p. 70.

3. Kochanowski, Jan (1968). Lisa Pasternak Slater (translator). "Black Gypsies,

White Gypsies: The Gypsies Within the Perspective of Indo-European
Migrations". Diogenes. 16 (63): 27–47. doi:10.1177/039219216801606302 .

4. Nelson, Dean (3 December 2012). "European Roma descended from Indian

'untouchables', genetic study shows" . Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved
15 December 2017.

5. Gypsies in Germany—German Gypsies? Identity and Politics of Sinti and Roma in

German (PDF). 2007.

6. "Europe invented 'gypsies,' says German author" . Deutsche Welle. Retrieved

15 March 2014.

7. Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft: Sonderheft . 1993.

ISBN 9783851241655.

8. Nicholas Saul, Susan Tebbutt, p. 182

9. Burleigh, The Racial State, p. 122.

10. Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wipperman, The Racial State: Germany 1933–
1945 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 117.

11. Davis, Mark (5 May 2015). "How World War II shaped modern Germany" .
euronews.
 12. Shapiro, Paul A.; Ehrenreich, Robert M. (2002).
"brown+triangle"#search_anchor Roma and Sinti: under-studied victims of
Nazism: symposium proceedings . Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies,
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. p. 24. Retrieved 2010-06-26.

13. "A Fight for Memory  –Monument Honors Sinti Boxer Murdered by the Nazis" .
Der Spiegel International. 30 June 2010. Retrieved 26 February 2011.

14. New Swing Quartet .

15. Contemporary Authors Online (Biography in Context) . Gale. 2003. ISBN 978-0-

7876-3995-2. Retrieved 29 March 2019.

16. Pace, Eric (1 July 2001). "Otto Rosenberg, 74, Gypsy Who Survived
Auschwitz" . Obituaries. The New York Times. p. B9.

Bibliography

Susan Tebbutt, Nicholas Saul; Tebbutt, Susan (2004). The role of the Romanies : images
and counter-images of 'Gypsies'/Romanies in European cultures . Liverpool: Liverpool
Univ. Press. ISBN 9780853236795.

Further reading
Walter Winter, Struan Robertson (translator). Winter Time: Memoirs of a German Who
Survived Auschwitz. Hertfordshire Publications, (2004), ISBN 1-902806-38-7.
Reviewed by Emma Brockes "We had the same pain " in The Guardian November 29,
2004.

https://books.google.com/books?
id=MDepBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=sinti+romani&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKE
wizgYPH3szkAhVVnJ4KHY7UCVcQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=sinti%20romani&f=fals
e

https://books.google.com/books?
id=5DuLwwEACAAJ&dq=sinti+romani&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizgYPH3szkAhVVnJ
4KHY7UCVcQ6AEIQTAE

https://books.google.com/books?
id=f8_sCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA87&dq=sinti+romani&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizgYPH3sz
kAhVVnJ4KHY7UCVcQ6AEISTAG#v=onepage&q=sinti%20romani&f=false

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sinti people.

Non-Jewish Victims of Persecution in Nazi Germany on the Yad Vashem website

Wege nach Ravensbrück (Ravensbrück concentration camp: Memories of surviving

female Sinti) (in German)

F. N. Finck, Lehrbuch des Dialekts der deutschen Zigeuner (1903) on Internet Archive
(in German)