I, Otto Rose, saw it with my own eyes, and live to tell the tale.

In this heartbreaking and riveting memoir, holocaust survivor and activist Otto Rosenberg describes his Sinti childhood in Berlin, the concentration camps and the post-war treatment of his people.

The Sinti are a subgroup of the Romani people, an Indo-Aryan ethnic group often referred to with the pejorative term "Gypsy." As the title of this book suggests, the mass killing of the Sinti and the Roma is often described as a 'forgotten holocaust.' Indeed, many narratives ignore the racial aspects of their persecution and blame the victims for being members of an 'asocial group.' A Gypsy in Auschwitz is a testimony of what the Sinti and Roma people experienced and how the world looked the other way, before, during and after the war.

In the first chapters, Otto provides vivid descriptions of his schooling, his Catholic faith and everyday life in his community. It is a precious snapshot of pre-war Sinti life. Otto and his grandmother lived, studied and worked in Berlin where "Lots of Sinti people moved around constantly in their caravans, but my grandmother wasn’t keen on that sort of life." Increasingly difficult situations will only strengthen the incredible bond between Otto and his grandmother. His grandmother exudes goodness, serving as a sort of guardian angel to local children. As restrictions against his people increase, they're forced to stop their usual trades, given compulsory labour and receive welfare payments instead. Orders directed at the Jewish community then are also applied to Sinti and Roma, and therefore a subsequent ban on their employment leads to accusations that they are unwilling to work.

During this time, Otto experiences further discrimination and poor treatment, with his classmates explicitly targeting him due to his darker skin. His family is relocated to a camp (a hastily set up shanty town) for Roma people which lacks access to clean water and is surrounded by sewage. Still able to go out, the boy is asked by a woman at the bakery, "What can I do for you today, my love? Did you forget to wash your face again?" Throughout Otto's life, society will place him into situations where he is unable to work or clean himself, and then make hurtful remarks that he is a "dirty Gypsy." Readers unfamiliar with Sinti or Roma culture might miss the references to hygiene laws such as "You can imagine the smell. Left to our own devices, we would never have pitched up in such a spot, not least because our laws forbid it." Forcing these communities to break cultural laws for the placement of rubbish and washing adds an additional layer of humiliation to their treatment. Ethnic Germans come to sightsee in the camp, as "The camp caused a great deal of curiosity: lots of people would come and take photos, and on a few occasions, they sneaked into the camp itself."

His family attracts the attentions of Nazi psychologist Robert Ritter and his assistant, the anthropologist and nurse Eva Justin. The reader, knowing what medical experimentation is to come, comprehends an undercurrent of horror. "I'd like Otto to come by the Institute of Anthropology after school" Justin says, and Otto, being a good schoolboy, visits and does her psychological tests and sleeps in her house. It's like something from Grimms' Fairy Tales, with this monstrous woman offering a food, drinks and a "heavenly bed." Otto is still free to go in and out of his camp, but he will struggle to explain the actions of the adults in his life. "It would have been better if she had given me a beating; I could have processed it a whole lot better."

Throughout the text, Otto reflects on lost opportunities and his interrupted youth. He shares happy memories of his first holy communion and the wonderful food his teachers shared with him. "The food was so delicious, and after school or for supper there was always a sweet, scrumptious soup served in a big mug, with baked or fried dumplings to go with it. When I cast my mind back, I can still conjure up the taste, even though I’ve never had such things since. The food alone was enough to keep us going back time and time again." This Sinti boy, who most would incorrectly assume has no interest in education, delights in learning Latin, serves as an altar boy and dreams of being a priest. "Of course, I have these wonderful memories of them, but it does also have to be said that the Catholic and Protestant churches both turned over their registers to the Nazis, so ultimately they contributed towards the persecution of the Sinti and Roma." Otto is eager to please the adults in his life. Later he will reflect that "If things had gone on the way they were, without the war, I might well have stayed at Christ the King and I think that I might even have become a priest. But, of course, we’ll never know."

This book is a necessary reminder that no amount of good behaviour, studiousness or military service could make up for having Sinti or Roma blood. "My uncles had all been in the military – cavalry, navy and infantry. One cousin was even in the Luftwaffe. Another had fought in Finland as part of the mountain troops...My uncle said, ‘I’m not fighting for a country that does this.’ So they confiscated his gun, and 14 days later he ended up in Auschwitz, too."

Otto's tales of endurance from the camps catalogue the horrors, ranging from the lice ("If you shook a blanket, they would scatter everywhere like grains of sand. The place was teeming with them.") to the deaths. He sensitively describes those who clearly lost their minds and how emotionally shattered everyone was from being constantly surrounded by violence and death. The treatment of children and their bodies is incredibly hard to read. There are also disturbing reminders of how many seemingly good people witnessed these events unfolding. For example, "Once the train had been going for a while, the children began to ask the Red Cross sister who was accompanying them why I was locked up." Nobody seems to question why a train full of Roma and Sinti children are on the train in the first place. He also considers the difficulties of having so many people of different nationalities and languages crammed in together. These sections show that the Roma people are not a monolithic group. Additionally, it is interesting to read his thoughts on why some people were able to endure more hardship than others.

This book sensitively describes the suffering of women, particularly in the loss of their fertility from forced sterilisation and their repeated sexual assaults by the SS. "The SS abused our women. Not in the block itself, but usually behind it or elsewhere. Afterwards, they shot them. One of my own relatives was shot in the head, but the bullet passed right through. She’s still alive, but she’s barely there at times, and she can’t bear to be reminded of what she went through back then." He shares with empathy how the loss of their ability to have their own children will create further problems after the war. Forced sterilization will haunt these survivors' lives as they try to move forward by marrying and having children of their own.

This memoir does not package his concentration camp experience as a source of inspiration or tribute to the undefeatable human spirit. Throughout the book he tries to understand how such senseless violence and hatred from his fellow Germans emerged, especially those who had once treated him kindly. As the war progresses, an act of kindness was "as though the sun had suddenly burst out from behind a cloud. The sheer joy of it – knowing that there were still good people in the world." Still, he develops an understandable fear of strangers and the unknown. After his release, he is terrified of the arriving Americans, British and Russians as he is the Germans. Outside the camp, he is malnourished, with no place to go and a heart full of rage. Where are his family members? How should he live?

Young Otto attempts to process all that has happened to him, his family and his country. If you know how Roma and Sinti are still treated today, these often uncomfortable accounts of how they were turned away from aid will sound depressingly familiar. Families who were well and whole before the war were left broken, economically and spiritually. They run into their abusers unpunished in the street and find themselves placed into the same work they were doing in the concentration camps. When Otto tries to refuse doing that same work, his superiors say he can't refuse to work and that he has to contribute. "That was how fast they came down on us again and insisted that we slave away. They were the same old Nazis in the same old jobs." They demanded that the concentration camp survivors rebuild the city as if they were responsible for its ruin.

Changing ideas of citizenship is a constant issue for Otto. Despite being born in East Prussia and brought up in Berlin, he is repeatedly congratulated for speaking German well. Occasionally he receives preferential treatment in the camps for being from Berlin. However, when he goes looking for reparations for his time in the concentration camps and the murder of so much of his family, he says "I had to go to the district court, only to be told that I wasn’t a real German and had no ties to Berlin. 'He’s a gypsy. Roving spirit and all that. Berlin’s never been his home.'" Otto finds, like many other Roma and Sinti survivors, that people will say their possessions, businesses and homes could not have been stolen because "Gypsies" couldn't possibly have ever owned anything. When their documents are stolen or destroyed, they can't prove how many family members have been murdered by the state. Nazi anthropologists and scientists collected his genealogy, but after the war they refuse to recognise his relationship with his mother and siblings due to the lack of paperwork. The heartlessness of the bureaucrats he deals with is astonishing, but not surprising. These chapters are key reading for anyone wishing to understand why this community is distrustful of those in authority. This will inspire Otto to be a leader and an activist for those were denied restitution and recognition after the war. Inescapable brutality and sorrow end with callous disregard for the Sinti and Roma victims, and Otto provides a meditation on how these barriers perpetuate disadvantage.

The rage over his experiences nearly consumes him. "When I first arrived there, I was full of hatred and intent on killing. I wanted to murder everyone, not just those who had tormented us in the camp. I thought, ‘You lot never accepted that we were Germans, so when we get out, we’ll kill you Germans in turn." Somehow he is able to redirect that rage and turn it into activism, addressing the "second wave of suffering on the Sinti and the Roma" including seeking the official recognition of their genocide in 1982, their racial prosecution at Berlin-Marzahn Rastplatz in 1987 and having a memorial erected in Berlin in 2012. Throughout this, he defiantly refers to himself as a German. " How the SS and, I suppose, Germans like you or me could have done what they did is beyond me. Nobody can understand it." Otto will leave the camps unable to speak about his experiences and re-enter society as a voice for his people.

This memoir insists the reader understand that the maltreatment of his people did not end in 1945. This testimony includes how he continued to live with his grief and loss, and found his faith after so much was taken from him. He discusses issues related to community, intergenerational trauma and memory with clarity and courage. The afterword by his daughter, Petra Rosenberg, is a brilliant call to action which reinforces the "need for civil rights work by Sinti and Roma groups."

Otto's story deserves the widest possible readership and should be added to the reading list of anyone wishing to learn about Europe's largest minority group.

I wanted to throw up several times while reading A Gypsy in Auschwitz, because Otto Rosenberg's experiences and the things he saw were atrocious. It is appalling that humans allowed other humans to be treated like this. I'm so very glad he wrote this story detailing his experiences, because these are things we should never allow to ever happen again. I hope people reading this learn from history. Stories like this of surviving the worst time in our history need to be told, and continue being told for generations to come.

A succinct and clear description of the plight of the Roma and Sinti throughout the Nazi rule in Germany. This honest and plain-speaking account reveals truths about human nature in the most desperate circumstances. An excellent read.

Today, is my spot on RandomThingsTours blog tour for Otto Rosenberg’s A Gypsy in Auschwitz. I read a paperback copy of this memoir, and I’m glad that I did. It is harrowing and deeply moving true story, and it left me very emotional. This book is a true account of life in numerous concentration camps during World War II, of survival against all odds and the awful treatment of Romani and Sinti people in war time Germany.
This book made me so emotional, it seems simply unbelievable that from such an early age, Otto Rosenberg survived such horrors. This memoir makes me appreciate what we have, plenty of food, warmth, our freedom and peace so much more, and I will appreciate it more and more every day and never take anything for granted.
This memoir is told in a simple and straightforward language. It is a fairly quick read but I have a feeling that what I have read will stay with me a long time. A Gypsy in Auschwitz is an important piece of history, as accounts like this so often tell harrowing stories of Jewish people in these camps, but the persecution of Romani and Sinti people were often forgotten, hence the ‘forgotten Holocaust’. This memoir is a historical account of survival, and should be added to a reading list at schools for those wanting to learn more about the history of Holocaust.
I don’t normally read memoirs or biographies, I mostly read fiction novels, and this book is so different to anything that I’ve ever read, yet this little book will probably have a bigger impact in how I see the world and how grateful I am for everything we have got than ten 300 page novels could ever have. I’m giving this fantastic read 5 stars because this memoir is a book that everybody should read.

Raw. I've read a lot of books on WWII, this one is very personal. Not as "polished" as other books, but very personal and (the best word I have for the book) ... raw. These words from the author are imprinted in my heart, as they should be, so that we never forget.

Chilling that Eva Justin who worked with Dr. Robert Ritter went into Gypsy camps to document their heritage and genealogy with the sole intent of marking them for extermination.

Afterword by Petra Rosenberg, the author's daughter. Otto Rosenberg (the author and survivor) was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1998. He died in 2001.

Originally published in 1998 in Berlin. Republishing in UK in 2022.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to review A Gypsy in Auschwitz in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the family of Otto Rosenberg for republishing this story.

Sinti, Rom-families, WW2, Germany, holocaust, nonfiction, memoir, memories, prison, family, survivors, 1930s, kindness, photos, victimization, survival, survivor's-guilt, genocide, historical-figures, historical-places-events, historical-setting, history-and-culture, personal-abasement, PTSD *****

From family fun in a Gypsy camp in Germany to survival in a Berlin labor camp to Auschwitz at age 15 to Buchenwald and later Bergen-Belsen, Otto tells his personal story of great loss and heartless privation in a matter-of-fact way to Ulrich Enzenberger (with translation by Maisie Musgrave). The German racial cleansing program started earlier than war, and there are only rare accounts for the deaths of the many Roma, Sinti, homosexual or other non-desirable minorities.
His narrative goes on, including much of his life after the end of the war (he lived 1927-2001) and his work toward establishing civil rights and holocaust recognition for the Sinti and Roma people.
His daughter, Petra, adds more to his story after the war in an epilogue and provides meaningful endnotes.
I requested and received a free e-book copy from Octopus Publishing US/Monoray via NetGalley. Thank you!
NEVER AGAIN

A very matter of fact account of Otto's experiences in Auschwitz and other camps operated by the Nazi's during the Holocaust. Difficult reading in parts, but also very interesting to see a side of the story that is not often told. I think most people are more familiar with the atrocities experienced by the Jews, that we forget that other groups were also targeted during this time. Thank you to @Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

My Rating: 4/5

I've read a few first-hand accounts of the concentration camps, and this is a new perspective. After reading Witold Pilecki's report on his time in Auschwitz-Birkenau gathering information on the camp, I have enough background knowledge to fill in the gaps of what happened to Otto Rosenberg that he didn't say.

As his daughter says in the afterword, the true history and horror of what happened under the Nazis (and the Japanese on my side of the world), tends to be numbed when spoken about as a group. The numbers just too big, the actions too outlandish. To actually understand, you need the individual stories.

I thank the late Otto and his daughter for bringing his story to the world. I hope Otto's mission of reintegration of the Sinti and Roma can assist in healing the wounds of previous generations, and that the lessons are not forgotten.

Well-written, like the story a grandfather is telling his young audience. Does tend to wander off topic now and then, but it's all interesting information anyway. Knowing what happened to some of the people he met along the way after '45 is a nice touch.

I read this book thanks to an ARC from NetGalley.
Only through reading the afterword did I realize it was a republication of a 2000 memoir re-released with post-scripts about the author's impact on truth and reconciliation between the Sinti and Roma populations and the German government.

There are thousand upon thousands of takes -- both non-fiction and fiction -- of what happened to Jews during the Holocaust. This is one of the few I've read about a Sinti (Gypsy) teen's experience. So much was the same, so much was different. This memoir talked about what it meant to live in German concentration camps, not just die there. The reason for the three star review? I couldn't tell who the audience for this book was intended to be. The writing is simple in both form and word choice. It was unclear if this was a book meant for younger audiences (middle grade, early teen?) or adults. The descriptions of life in Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen seemed sanitized (not sanitary, sanitized) compared to the detail in other memoirs.

A look at the holocaust not often told. A wonderfully (weird choice of word but it works) detailed telling of th disgusting, horrifying way the Nazis treated the Gypsys and other that did not fit with the ideology of closed minded awful people.

This book was rough I couldn’t imagine having to live
that. I found myself not being able to put this book down I spent the whole day reading.
Written beautifully. The family pictures made the book a little more personal I absolutely loved the family pictures. A lot of rare emotion. All around great read.

I can’t wait to be able to buy this book and add it to my collection. Thank you!

I remember learning about Auschwitz in school and of course I heard about it from my grandfather growing up. But reading this book really got my attention knowing that there were others in Auschwitz other than Jews. I did find that the book was a little slow at first in reading it but once I got further in the book it did get better. I would recommend to others to read if you have always been interested in learning more about the Holocost!

Amazing, heartbreakingly honest, and a definite soon to be re read for me. Rosenberg’s language is so beautifully constructed, and It was intriguing to read about a gypsy who who survived this, it’s one of the few I have seen and would definitely recommend it to friends and family.

Very interesting book. We have all read so many accounts of Jews in Auschwitz. But this was told from a gypsy experience. Sad but good to see them getting there voice out where it’s not been heard before. Very well written

This is the 1st book I've read from a Gypsy perspective. And honestly, I don't remember Gypsies ever being mentioned. Thanks so much to Otto telling his story and his family having it published.

We follow his story as a young boy at home with his family to his time in the Concentration Camps. Strong, smart, a survivor. He goes on to relate his experiences in running into others post war and how they react to him.

Well written, easy to follow.

I typically enjoy memoirs and am highly interested in history. A Gypsy in Auschwitz proved to be a great addition not only to my personal bookshelf but to my classroom as well. As you begin to read, you soon realize that you are hearing the story from the perspective of a young boy. I loved that the author has chosen to tell their story this way. The authenticity and storytelling allowed me to intimately see inside not just a culture of gypsies I had seen depicted in movies and such but behind the scenes. The love of a grandmother raising her grandson was both heartwarming and heartbreaking. The flow was quick and at times I wanted the author to slow down and provide me a little more imagery but understood that from the point of view of a child, you would not necessarily have this. At the same time, the pages turned quickly because I was eager to learn more about him.

From a historical perspective, I enjoyed getting to know Otto. Throughout, you realize that English is not his first language but that does not impede your reading. Instead, you get to know bits of his language, culture, and desire to survive a stolen childhood as he is torn from his family, his caravan home, and his lifestyle as he is drug from one labor/concentration camp to another. Through Otto's journey, I was introduced not only to his perspective but to those he encountered along the way from people who persecuted him and/or even tried to ignore what was happening by looking the other way. Many holocaust stories only give you a glimpse of the victim, but here we see that of those who neglected to help and added to the problem. My heart ached for Otto as a child and as an adult survivor.

I think Otto's story proves the importance of listening to as many personal testimonies of those who survived this horrific time, validating their stories, and passing their stories on in hopes that history does not repeat itself.

As concentration camp survivors' memoirs go, Otto Rosenberg's is a short one and unique because it's one of those rare (I only know about two others) written by a survivor of the Roma & Sinti ethnicity.

Young Otto was only 9 when the Nazis rounded up him and his family in Germany to be sent to a concentration camp; he would ultimately end up in Auschwitz, but it was neither the first nor the only concentration camp he had to endure, just the one he remembers the clearest and the most horrific. In his brief account, he tells us about his time there in spare, direct and unadorned prose, even cold and detached, which is likely a product of him seeing it all in hindsight in his adulthood. It's not a particularly engrossing style and the detached feel of it might not appeal to some, but Rosenberg is going for bearing witness to the tragedy of his people and not for telling a story the public will find lively. It's harsh, brutal, and true.

Mr Rosenberg also doesn't stop at the moment the Allies barge in into the concentration camp to liberate it, as many memoirs do, but goes beyond and tells us about his life after Auschwitz too, which is another plus as it lets us know how he moved on with such heavy baggage and how society treated his people after the genocide. Hint: it's hardly surprising that the gypsies even now don't have a warm place in Europeans' hearts.

This re-edition of Mr Rosenberg's memoirs has an afterword by his daughter, Petra, and endnotes that help add context or clarify parts of the memoirs, which are going to be useful to those not well versed in the history of the period. His daughter's afterword, although also rather brief, helps highlight how his experience became intergenerational trauma for the Rosenberg family, through the anecdotes of how little Petra would wake up to her father's nocturnal PTSD episodes. Many memoirs exclude the family of the survivors, who invariably inherit their pain, and I wish the afterword had been longer for that reason. Nonetheless, brief as it was, it was a poignant detail.

A moving account which takes the reader from before the war, through the camps and to life after liberation. It is fascinating to read about the culture of the author and how he was raised, as well as to learn about his achievements after the war including the recognition brought to his people as a result of his advocacy. Even while there is heartbreaking, sickening detail about his time in Auschwitz, I sense there is still more left unsaid and this adds to the pathos of his story. A must read for all generations - these stories must not be forgotten.

A truly inspirational novel on an individual’s survival in the concentration camps in WW2. What happened to him, his family, and others was horrifying and heartbreaking. The hardships he endured make a great read for the history fan. A great novel!

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I basically had to skim this book because of the translation and writing. It was a story that needed to be told about the gypsies during the holocaust and very sad to read. But sorry to say it wasn’t easy to follow and didn’t make sense at times. Thank you netgalley for letting me give an honest review of this book.