rrojasandribbons:

There is also a myth that Romani people in Nazi occupied Europe were able to escape to the US. I have heard and seen this story several times.. 

However, that is fundamentally not true. 

Prior to implementing the “Final Solution” in 1941, the Nazis actually compiled good records of Romani communities in the regions they occupied. That is why we have historical images like these:

The last image is actually the most striking, however, because it depicts a Romani woman undergoing a DNA test. 

Some of the countries in which the Nazis invaded had “Gypsy control” policies in place since the 1920s. In Austria and Germany, in particular, the governments had actually compiled “registration” cards for all of the Romani people living in their respective territories. 

In 1935, the Nazis implemented a Eugenics research program, which had the purpose of proving that Romani people were an “inferior race”. This resulted in Nazi scientists traveling within Nazi occupied Europe and documenting the local Romani communities. The Nazis kept impeccable records, so much so, that historians have been able to reconstruct how big pre-war Romani communities were, and where they were located. 

The Nazis also implemented something akin to the “one drop rule”. If they determined that just one of your eight grandparents was Romani, then you were Romani and you were targeted for the “Final Solution”. They documented all of this. 

In the 1940s, it became illegal for any Romani person living in Nazi occupied Europe to travel. 

So, by the time the “Final Solution” was implemented in 1941, the whereabouts of Romani people who had not already been interned or deported were well known. The Nazis had documented where Romani communities were, how many people lived there, and who qualified as a “Gypsy half-breed” according to their standards. 

In the summer of 1941, the Nazis began systematically murdering Romani people through a series of mass shootings carried out by the SS. In 1942, the “Gypsy camp” at Auschwitz was “liquidated”. 

While some Romani people certainly escaped and survived, many were not so fortunate. 

90%-95% of Roma and Sinti in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were killed.
583 of them survived, only about 100 of whom were Bohemian Roma. 
80% of the Roma, Sinti, and Lovari that had lived in Austria were killed.
600-700 of them survived. 
Nearly 22,000 of the original 23,000 Romani persons sent to Auschwitz died in Auschwitz.
2,897 Romani persons were killed in Auschwitz in a single day in 1944.
3,500 Romani men, women, and children were subjected to Nazi medical experiments. 
Nearly all 25,000 Romani people living in Croatia were murdered. 
15,000-20,000 of them were deported to and later died in Jasenovac.
About 10% of the Serbian Roma population died in Jasenovac, alone. 
Nazis likely killed at least one third of all Serbian Roma by their own estimates. 
In 1930, there were 242,656 Roma living in Romania. By 1948, there 53,425.
At least 25,000 Roma in Transnistria were documented to have been starved to death by the Nazis
At least 28,000 Hungarian Roma died. 
At least 30% of Hungarian Roma were interned for forced labor. 
It is estimated that some 3,000 Hungarian Roma survived the Holocaust. 
Anywhere from 6,000 to 30,000 Romani people are believed to have been interned in Vichy France, although very few died.
It is estimated that the pre-war population of Romani people in Europe was around one million. Conservative estimates claim the Nazis killed approximately 500,000 Romani people.
Liberal estimates maintain that at least 800,000 Romani people died during the Holocaust. 
That means somewhere between 50% and 80% of European Romani people died during the Holocaust 

That gives you an idea of just how utterly devastating the Holocaust was to Romani people in Europe. 

It would have been impossible for Romani people to have fled Nazi occupied Europe. Even Romani people who fled to places like France were interned, and some were deported to Dachau where they died. 

In fact, one of the well documented migrations of Romani people occurred after the war ended during which many European Romani families moved to the United States, Britain, and even to the British Mandate of Palestine. 

Please stop rewriting Romani history to make your “Gypsy” ancestry story seem more unique and legitimate.  

It’s infuriating, and it’s disrespectful. Most importantly, though, it is wrong.