Wilhelm Spindler (civil rights activist)

Wilhelm Spindler (born April 16, 1923 in Bannholz near Weilheim ; † January 12, 2013 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German Sinto and civil rights activist.

Career

Wilhelm Spindler lost many of his members as a member of the Sinti group during the Nazi era. In 1944 he was forcibly sterilized .

Spindler was a co-founder of the Sinti Union Freiburg and in 1982 co-founder of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma . From 1982 to 2010 he was deputy chairman of the central council and was elected its first honorary chairman after resigning due to health problems.

Honors

• 1998: Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon
• March 6, 2013 (posthumously): Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

literature

• Reinhold Hämmerle: Discriminated, deported, destroyed - the ordeal of the Spindler family . In: 60 years past, repressed, forgotten? March 24, 1943 Concentration camp deportation of the Herbolzheim Sinti family Spindler . Herbolzheim 2004, pp. 68-103.
• Wilhelm Spindler: We always had one foot in the grave . In: Daniel Strauss (Ed.): Weggekommen: Reports and testimonies from Sinti who survived the Nazi persecution . Philo, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-8257-0172-7 , pp. 168-171.

Web links

• Obituary at the Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma