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A large-scale digital edition is bringing together sources on the National Socialist genocide committed against the Sinti and Roma in Europe, and making them accessible for research purposes and to the general public. Around 1,200 documents are to be published. The project, funded by the German Research Foundation, is located at the Research Centre on Antigypsyism of Heidelberg University. Approximately 4.5 million euros in finance are available for the total project duration of nine years. The project is primarily based on the digital Encyclopaedia of the Nazi Genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe that has been evolving since July 2020, also at the Research Centre.
Press Release
Heidelberg, 24 February 2026
Sources on the Nazi Genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe
German Research Foundation funds digital edition at the Research Centre on Antigypsyism of Heidelberg University
A large-scale digital edition is bringing together sources on the National Socialist genocide committed against the Sinti and Roma in Europe, and making them accessible for research purposes and to the general public. Around 1,200 documents are to be published – documents from the administrative and persecution apparatus, supplemented by sources from the victims’ perspective. The project, funded by the German Research Foundation, is located at the Research Centre on Antigypsyism of Heidelberg University. Approximately 4.5 million euros in finance are available for the total project duration of nine years. The project is primarily based on the digital Encyclopaedia of the Nazi Genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe that has been evolving since July 2020, also at the Research Centre.
“The Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma was ignored for decades not only in society and politics – it attracted little interest in research circles, too,” explains historian Dr Karola Fings, who is the academic director of both projects. The “Edition on the Nazi Genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe” aims to chart all essential persecution processes ranging from racist stigmatization to murder in the extermination camps. Geographically the edition covers all the countries in which Sinti and Roma were persecuted either under German predominance or by states allied with Germany. Furthermore, neutral nations are also taken into account, as are western war allies against the German Reich. The edition is, for the first time, collating the documents from the administrative and persecution apparatus relevant to the various aspects of the genocide. “These documents,” says Dr Fings, “are being consistently supplemented by sources from the victims’ perspective in order to make their individuality and self-assertiveness visible and to form an autonomous contrast with the antigypsyist interpretative patterns of the perpetrators.”
“The edition is making an indispensable contribution to expanding Europe’s cultural memory and creates a long-term knowledge storehouse for the future, which is highly relevant, not least in view of present-day antigypsyism,” underlines Dr Frank Reuter, academic manager of the Research Centre on Antigypsyism. In its function as a curated archive, the edition is designed to provide many-faceted stimuli and serve as a starting point for further research projects. “The project will also provide further insights into the significance of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe as a crime scene in the genocide of the Sinti and Roma,” says Prof. Dr Tanja Penter, a historian focusing on Eastern Europe and the academic director of the Research Centre on Antigypsyism. As applicants, Dr Fings, Dr Reuter, Prof. Penter, and Dr Brigitte Grote, head of the Digital Research Infrastructures division at Freie Universität Berlin, will lead the project jointly with Heidelberg-based economic and social historian Prof. Dr Katja Patzel-Mattern. Work began at the start of this year.
The edition draws substantively on the digital Encyclopaedia of the Nazi Genocide of the Sinti and Roma in Europe, which is evolving with support by the Federal Foreign Office at the Research Centre on Antigypsyism. It is a compilation of the widely scattered, often practically inaccessible historical knowledge about the genocide and its causes, structures and development, and hence represents essential preliminary work for the digital sources edition. The project, which draws on a network of more than 100 experts from 26 countries, is supported by an international academic advisory board.
The Research Centre on Antigypsyism was established at Heidelberg University’s Department of History as the first academic institution in Europe with this thematic focus, and so far it is the only one. Since 2017 it has pursued research on the causes, forms and consequences of antigypsyism in European societies from the Middle Ages to the present day.
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