Looking back at his childhood, Holocaust survivor Mano Höllenreiner recalled how his father, his uncles and other Sinti and Roma joined forces to fight to the death against the SS paramilitary Nazi organization in 1944 inside the Auschwitz extermination camp.

Höllenreiner was only 10 years old at the time, and he later spoke about the men in his family: "They had been in the military, they weren't afraid."

Together, they defended themselves against imminent transportation to the gas chambers in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

In the camp, they and their families suffered from hunger, thirst, cold, disease, brutal violence and unbearable hygiene conditions in the so-called "gypsy camp." The children were the first to die.

Auschwitz 1944: Resistance under unbearable conditions

After they received a warning about a major SS operation, the prisoners armed themselves with stones, sticks and shovels they had been able to smuggle into their barracks from their forced labor sites. They entrenched themselves behind the entrance, ready to fight, and refused to come out.

The guards finally left, Höllenreiner remembered. "Even as a child, you understood that they got the message, that this time the people would fight back," he said. He added that the guards knew that a few of them might lose their lives in the attempt to squash the resistance, and that they would not be able to gas all the inmates without fierce opposition.

Many prisoners who were fit for work were then transferred to other concentration camps. Cousins Hugo and Mano Höllenreiner, along with their parents and siblings, thereby escaped being murdered in Auschwitz.

However, the approximately 4,300 remaining prisoners — children, mothers, the elderly and the sick — were herded onto trucks in the night from August 2 to 3, 1944. They fought back with all their might, a Polish prisoner observed: "Women were the toughest fighters — they were younger and stronger — and defended their children."

But they were all murdered in the gas chambers. That very night, according to the observer, black smoke from the crematorium drifted over the camp.

August 2 is now observed as European Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Sinti, Roma fight for survival together

The resistance of the Sinti and Roma in Auschwitz has not been researched comprehensively, historian Karola Fings told DW, adding that for a long time no one was interested in it.

Fings, from the Antiziganism Research Center at Heidelberg University, is the editor of "The Encyclopedia of the Nazi Genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe," compiled to make documents available online and encourage new research.

The atmospherically dense reports, said Fings, show the struggle for survival and the joint search for strategies. In view of the horror in Birkenau, it is incredible how people came together in solidarity in order to survive, she said.

Sinti, Roma women protest deportations

Sinti and Roma families in Auschwitz were not divided into men's and women's blocks like other prisoners. This also has to do with their earlier resistance to persecution, according to Fings. "When Sinti and Roma families were separated, there was fierce resistance," she said.

As early as 1938, when several hundred Sinti and Roma men were deported to concentration camps, it was mainly the women who protested. "The wives, mothers, sisters and daughters traveled to Berlin and campaigned for the release of their male relatives. They often accepted that protesting in public could mean they themselves would be deported to concentration camps because they were so unruly," explained Fings.

At the time, Sinti and Roma activists called in lawyers and sent letters of protest to all state authorities, from the criminal investigation department to the office of dictator Adolf Hitler.

After the Nazi era, resistance continues

After World War II, the racist persecution and genocide of the Sinti and Roma at the hands of the Nazis were widely denied in West German society. The justice system was rife with supporters of the Nazi regime, and Nazi perpetrators made a career in academia or the police and harassed members of the minority during compensation proceedings. "It was a terrible struggle for survivors," said Fings.

Heinz Strauss survived Auschwitz and lost many relatives in the Holocaust. His son, Daniel, is involved in the civil rights movement today, as chairman of the State Association of German Sinti and Roma in the state of Baden-Württemberg. "We have achieved recognition as a national minority, we have achieved recognition of the genocide," said Strauss.

What is the German government doing for Sinti and Roma?

In its coalition agreement, the new federal government has committed itself to the fight against antisemitism and the protection of Jewish life. However, Sinti and Roma are not mentioned in the document, nor is the fight against antiziganism. Lawyer Mehmet Daimagüler told DW that this omission concerns him.

Daimagüler was the previous government's commissioner for antiziganism and has campaiged for the rights of Sinti and Roma in Germany. Many measures — developed by the Independent Commission on Antiziganism — were adopted during his term of office, but they now need to be implemented.

The commissioner was an important bridge between the government and members of the minority, Roma activist Renata Conkova told DW, adding that abolishing the office would be a mistake. Conkova offers counseling for immigrant Roma families in the eastern German state of Thuringia, especially those from Ukraine.

Despite much progress and political commitment, people from the minority are still being discriminated against in kindergartens and schools, in government offices, when looking for housing and in the workplace, said Conkova. "We want to solve the problems," she said, adding that this can only be done together with politicians and authorities.

This article was originally written in German.

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