A Gypsy In Auschwitz: How I Survived the Horrors of the ‘Forgotten Holocaust’

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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.

Even his children are living with the horrors seeing their father so upset and riddled with memories taunting him years later. What's equally important is the intergenerational trauma - epigenetic trauma is fascinating and tragic. My sincere thank you to Octopus Publishing US and NetGalley for the honour of reading this deeply touching and important true story.It was certainly great deal of luck and he believed a protective hand held over him, shielding him from harm. He is just a little boy so when a shiny object catches his eye, he tries to steal it to play with it. It rarely accounts for the deaths of the many Roma, Sinti, homosexual or other non desirable minorities. While the numbers are shocking, they are an abstract figure whereas a memoir such as this which focuses on one person gives us a starkly affecting insight into the terrible persecution of Roma and Sinti people during WW2 and beyond. Despite being born in East Prussia and brought up in Berlin, he is repeatedly congratulated for speaking German well.

It would have been better if she had given me a beating; I could have processed it a whole lot better. No punishment or accountability, instead the victims were victimised further by having to watch the guilty live without the burden of trauma, and what's worse they have to live with the murderers among them. 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. 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.The law enforcement authorities would later use this information to assign individuals for compulsory sterilisation and admission to concentration camps. He was on top of the world has he started earning in a factory in an armament factory in Berlin- Lichtenburg. 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. Minorities were usually treated bad throughout history, but the Romani population still have a terrible time integrating in all European countries today. 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.

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. 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. Without giving too much away this was a book that had to be written, we need more books about Roma and Sinti, they deserve to be known and the stories to be heard. There was an element of luck too, of course and throughout the book there are times when it is evident just how close to death he became.Readers unfamiliar with Sinti or Roma culture might miss the references to hygiene laws such as "You can imagine the smell. With so many stories about the treatment of Gypsies during the Holocaust either untold or lost to history, reading this book was utterly heartbreaking. Additionally, it is interesting to read his thoughts on why some people were able to endure more hardship than others. 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.