Mosaic of Victims
Databases of identified Roma victims of World War II in Hungary, containing the data of deportees to Nazi camps, the victims of mass executions committed in Hungarian territory, as well as the casualties of military service and labour service and civilian war victims.
Database of Roma deported from Hungary, 1944-1945
After the Arrow Cross Party takeover on October 15 1944, the Hungarian public administration and the gendarmerie deported thousands of Roma, mostly from Western Hungary and the annexed territory of Southern Slovakia, to the collection camp in Star Fort, Komárom. They were detained in inhumane conditions. Adults and youth declared able to work were deported to various concentration camps in Germany, including Dachau, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Mauthausen, and Ravensbrück. Many died or were permanently injured by cruel treatment and forced labour. While family members who remained the Star Fort were later released to go home, plenty, especially the young and the elderly, perished from hunger or froze to death in Komárom or on their way back.
The research to identify the victims started in 2015 and it was continued from 2019 in the framework of the IHRA Grant project of the National Archives of Hungary. The key objectives of this project included the recording of the names and personal data of all Hungarian Roma who perished during World War II. We devote a separate database to the names and data of Roma deported to concentration camps in Germany. The majority of the victims arrived at the Dachau concentration camp in November-December 1944, and the research therefore focused primarily on this camp. The starting point was an online database published by Stephen P. Morse in 2008, in which volunteers from the Jewishgen family research organisation, led by Peter Landé, processed the records, transport lists and other documents of the 160,000 prisoners registered in Dachau concentration camp (stevemorse.org/dachau/dachau.html). There are several difficulties in identifying and organising Hungarian-related data in this database. The database does not contain images of prisoner cards, only descriptions. Personal data on deportees are inaccurately recorded in the documents. There are also some documents that are illegible. A further difficulty is that Roma of Hungarian citizenship or deported from Hungary may have been classified in several categories of prisoners. There are currently 18 such categories and category abbreviations. The most common categories are ‘Hungarian Gypsy’ (Zig.Ung.), ‘political’ (Ung.Pol.) and ‘protective custody’ (Sch.Ung.). Thus, not all Roma/Gypsies deported from Hungary to Dachau were categorised as Roma/Gypsies during deportation, and not all people categorised as Roma/Gypsies during deportation were actually Roma/Gypsies.
In the first phase of the research, we had to identify the transcriptions of the prisoner cards (potentially) related to Hungarian Gypsies in the database one by one. The data on these were sorted according to the number of prisoners in Dachau, and a preliminary list was drawn up, which we then tried to clarify and supplement by comparing it with sources found in Hungarian archival documents, registers, the press, memoirs and literature. The database includes the names of those who perished in the camps and also the survivors.
A large part of the documents held at the International Tracing Service (ITS) archives in Bad Arolsen (now the Arolsen Archives-International Center on Nazi Persecution) are searchable online since 2019. We continued our research in this database and were able to refine the previous database on the basis of the original documents now available (arolsen-archives.org). In addition to Dachau, we have so far identified Hungarian Roma deportees and victims in the following camps: Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Mauthausen, Natzweiler, Ravensbrück and their subcamps. As of February 2023, the database contains data on 1470 deported persons. Further victims are being identified.
Database of Roma deported from Hungary, 1944-1945
Database of Hungarian Roma soldiers and civilian victims, 1939-1945
The aim of this database is to compile the names and personal data of Roma men who died during military service or labour service during World War II, as well as the names of women, men and children who died in bombings and military operations. The research work, which served as a starting point, was launched in 2015, using the war graves database of the Military History Institute and Museum (hadisir.militaria.hu) and the available prisoner of war lists. In the first phase of the research, the war grave database was used to locate individual casualty records linked to (potentially) Gypsy/Roma conscripts. The identification of Gypsy soldiers and other victims was mainly based on surname, mother’s surname and possibly other relatives’ surnames, traditional Roma professions, and place of residence (e.g. Gypsy row, Gypsy settlement), in each case after individual assessment. The identifications were accompanied by research of press and archival sources. The research was carried out from 2019 onwards as part of a project of the National Archives of Hungary with the support of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA Grant) and the Hungarian and Austrian governments.
Database of Hungarian Roma soldiers and civilian victims, 1939-1945
Database of Roma victims of mass executions in Hungary
After Hungary had become a theatre of war during World War II, serious war crimes were committed against the Roma. Between early September 1944 and late March 1945, hundreds of people, including women and young children were murdered at several locations, mostly by Hungarian soldiers and gendarmes. The database contains the names and personal data of the victims of the 10 major mass executions which have been identified in the wartime territory of Hungary.