Sinti

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 in use by the Sinti from only the 18th century on, and is likely a European loanword.[2][5]

The Sinti arrived in Austria and Germany in the Late Middle Ages as part of the Romani emigration 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.[9] 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.

The Holocaust

Johann Trollmann, a German Sinti boxer, 1928

Main article: Porajmos

The Sinti and other Romani migrated to Germany in the late 15th century. Despite their long presence, 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.[10] Some were sent to Poland, or elsewhere (including some deported to Yugoslavia by the Hamburg Police in 1939[11]) others were confined to designated areas, and many were eventually murdered in gas chambers.[12] 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.

Memorial in Nuremberg opposite Frauentorgraben 49, where on the 15 September 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were adopted in the ballroom of the Industrial & Cultural Association clubhouse

In concentration camps, the Sinti were forced to wear either a black triangle, indicating their classification as "asocial",[13] 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

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.[14]

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.[15]

• History of the Romani people
• Romani people by country
• Sindhi diaspora
• Sinte Romani (language)