Gypsy camp Cologne-Bickendorf
The so-called Gypsy Camp Köln-Bickendorf , also known as the Black and White Square , was used during the Nazi era from 1935 to accommodate Sinti in their own caravans or in barracks . It is regarded as a model for comparable institutions in the German Reich and, like them, played a decisive role in the genocide of this ethnic group : all residents of the camp were recorded, selected and later deported to labor and concentration camps in the eastern German territories from a racial perspective . After the end of the Second World War , the square was initially used by Roma until it was finally closed in 1958.
precursor
As early as the Weimar Republic , but also in the early years of National Socialism , local authorities set up camp sites for Sinti and Roma. These were designed in such a way that their users should be prompted to move on quickly, for example due to high space rents, quickly changing locations or insufficient equipment. The aim was to expel the Sinti and Roma from their own local jurisdiction. Their use was basically voluntary, because the “gypsies” were at least allowed to rent private quarters or apartments as an alternative. In 1928, over 400 Sinti and Roma lived on private parking spaces in Cologne.
Black and white square
During the global economic crisis , “gypsy makeshift buildings” were built in up to 90 wild settlements in Cologne. There were also many traveling people among the residents, such as showmen and " gypsies ". Such camps were a thorn in the side of the National Socialists for social and regulatory , but ultimately for ideological reasons. Accumulations of social, cultural or economic deviations from the National Socialist norm should be separated from the " national community ", i.e. H. removed from the city center, rehabilitated and concentrated on the outskirts.
In 1934, a site in Cologne was identified at Venloer Strasse 888, on the embankment of the Bickendorf freight station and the sports field of the “Schwarz-Weiß” association, on which the camp for the Cologne “gypsies” was built. The aim of these efforts was no longer the expulsion of the Sinti and Roma, but the concentrated, systematic housing and monitoring of this population group far from the city center.
On April 23, 1935, the unpaved area was completed. It was bordered by the railway embankment and a barbed wire fence and had a lockable driveway that was guarded by an SS camp administrator who lived on the premises with his family .
Occupancy
From May 1935 the police and welfare office systematically directed the Sinti and Roma residing or arriving in Cologne to the Bickendorfer camp site. First of all, numerous residents of caravans let themselves be convinced of the qualities of the new black and white square and voluntarily cleared the city's private and wild campsites. Soon, however, evictions also occurred , for example in the case of 40 residents of a site on Riehler Strasse that was legally rented under private law . Even those who lived in a permanent apartment could be admitted if benefits from the welfare office were received. After all, in 1937 up to 500 people lived in 65 caravans and two barracks on the black and white square.
Life in the camp
The residents of the gypsy camp were confronted with poverty, cramped living conditions and permanent control measures by the camp administration and the police. The armed SS camp manager determined the layout of the caravans and maintained a file of all residents of the site. With him, who wanted to enter and leave the place had to sign in and out. From 1937, a night-time ban was imposed and the camp was only allowed to be left on foot during the day. Anyone who did not live in the camp was also not allowed to enter it as a visitor. Insofar as they were identified as such, the Sinti and Roma also lived strictly separated from “German national comrades ” in the camp .
There was a water point with several taps. The 9 square meter caravans were overcrowded with an average of eight people. The cars were mostly in a dilapidated condition and did not offer sufficient thermal insulation in winter. There were only ten toilets on the square, the keys of which were also kept by the warehouse manager and only given out individually when needed.
The municipal welfare office took care of residents without sufficient income by assigning an employee to the square. If necessary, she distributed fuel, food vouchers, but mostly natural produce to residents in need. However, these services were mostly dependent on compulsory work. In general, great importance was attached to the provision of work by the camp residents.
The Cologne Criminal Police was the first police authority in the German Reich to maintain its own "Commissariat for Gypsies", which operated regularly in the camp. In addition to the complete registration of all gypsies living in Cologne, the enforcement of the “gypsy pass” and the “ preventive fight against crime ” among the camp residents were part of its tasks. This repeatedly led to the arrests of people who could not support their livelihood, who stood out for being “lazy”, who had shown no will to regular work or who had otherwise committed criminal offenses. In the best-case scenario, those affected were subjected to forced labor by the Cologne authorities or the military. But there were also deportations of residents of the square, who were anti- social in the sense of the Nazi ideology, to concentration camps. In the “Arbeitsscheu Reich” campaign, for example, the entire camp was surrounded on June 21, 1938 in order to arrest all residents who were fit for work but not in employment: Up to 30 residents of the Schwarz-Weiß-Platz were initially taken to prison and later Deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp . Until 1940, sporadic or ad hoc access and deportations remained.
Selection and deportation
The registration of all “Gypsies” living in the German Reich was the task of the “ Racial Hygiene and Population Biological Research Center in the Reich Health Office ” in Berlin, under the direction of the doctor and “ racial researcher ” Robert Ritter . The main aim of the institute was to research and prove the origin of sociological phenomena in the laws of genetics . This presumed connection would later become an ideological building block for the physical annihilation of unadapted people.
In 1937 a working group at the research center organized an alleged blood donation campaign, for which even a low payment for the camp residents was planned, and combined with it a first racial biological record. In addition to the collection of extensive genealogical information, this also included the measurement of body parts, determination of eye color, the submission of finger and hand prints and the submission of hair samples. A second on-site visit by the research center in 1938 was mandatory for all residents.
After the beginning of the war in 1939, all "Gypsies" in the German Reich were forbidden to leave their current whereabouts - for violators, deportation to a concentration camp was planned. This measure helped the “race researchers” with the complete recording of all persons categorized as “Gypsies” and “Gypsy hybrids”, including those who lived outside the black and white square in rented apartments. While medical care in the camp was reduced to a minimum at the beginning of the 1940s, the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) compiled the deportation lists for the persons recorded with the help of the data from the Ritter Research Center.
On May 16, 1940, a command composed of police forces, members of the Wehrmacht and the SS surrounded the black and white square. They arrested all the Sinti and Roma on the pretext that they were being evacuated to Poland to protect them from bombing, where even small houses were promised for all families. In fact, the residents of the camp were driven to a storage facility in the Cologne exhibition center . There they were subjected to further examinations, photographed, deloused and cleaned. Valuables had to be handed in, all persons were stamped their number on the deportation list on their bodies and on their “Gypsy ID”. Over the next few days, more Sinti and Roma from the Rhineland and Westphalia joined them, until finally, on May 21, 1940, around 1,000 people were driven eastwards from Deutz train station in cattle wagons . There, after a long ordeal through labor camps , ghettos and concentration camps, they mostly died.
The camp on the black and white square was then disbanded and the caravans were burned.
post war period
The exact number of deaths from the Cologne gypsy camp is not known. From contemporary witness reports it can be estimated that only 100 of the 500 or so residents returned to Cologne alive after 1945. Some survivors resettled in the black and white square to wait for missing family members. Still under adverse conditions, but at least self-determined, they created a "wild settlement" together with local homeless people. In the first post-war years , the authorities tried to counter this phenomenon by using Nazi terminology and even Nazi regulations on dealing with "Gypsies". Once again, in 1952, the residents of other squares in Cologne were ordered by the authorities to vacate them and move to the black and white square. However, this instruction was not carried out.
In 1958, the resolution of the square had already been resolved in 1952, 51 Sinti and Roma families lived on the square again, alongside 131 families with other ethnic backgrounds. On November 21 of this year they were brought to a place near Cologne-Roggendorf with their caravans . After the entire square had been cleared, the area was added to a new industrial area and built on.
In 1990, 50 years after the deportation of the Sinti and Roma from Cologne, the artist Gunter Demnig drew a 16-kilometer colored line with the help of a stencil from the former black and white square to the Deutz train station, from which 1000 referred to as gypsies in May 1940 People were deported. The “trace of memory” was formed from the words “May 1940 - 1000 Roma and Sinti”. The line is no longer preserved today. At prominent points along the route, however, short sections of bronze with the same inscription were embedded in the ground. As part of this, a memorial plaque was attached to the railway underpass near the former Schwarz-Weiß-Platz.
literature
- Karola Fings , Frank Sparing: The Gypsy Camp in Cologne-Bickendorf 1935–1958 , in: 1999. Journal for Social History of the 20th and 21st Century , 1991, Issue 3.
- Karola Fings, Frank Sparing: Racism, Camp, Mass Murder. The National Socialist persecution of gypsies in Cologne (publications of the NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne , vol. 13), Emons Verlag , Cologne, 2005, ISBN 3897054086 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 57 ′ 46.6 " N , 6 ° 53 ′ 20.7" E