ople have been ignored by historians, politicians and the media would be an understatement. How many people know about the enslavement of Gypsies in Europe?
             How many people know that the Nazis killed between a fourth and a third of all Gypsies living in Europe and that they were rounded up and killed in similar proportions to the Jews?
             The anti-Gypsy campaign in Germany, which was based on well-known prejudices and discriminatory laws that predated the short-lived Weimar Republic, began shortly after Hitler took command in January 1933. Gypsies were castrated and sterilized, shipped to early concentration camps and forbidden from marrying Germans. A Central Office to "Combat the Gypsy Nuisance" opened in Munich in June 1936. Numerous Gypsies were gathered up in Germany the week of June 12-18, 1938, known as the "Gypsy Clean-Up Week."
             The total number of Romani exterminated by the Nazis is around 600,000, and although it amounts to only a tenth of the number of Jewish victims, in terms of the extermination of a whole nation, the proportions are similar. In the countries occupied by the Nazis, 80% of all Gypsies were annihilated. 1 Keeping this in mind, one might wonder why there were no Gypsies called to testify at the Nuremberg trials or any other of the succeeding war crime trials. In addition, up until 1997 there was no Gypsy representation to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, established by President Carter in 1979 to honor all those who died in the World War Two genocides. Why were the Romani efforts to gain representation in the Council formed of 65 members consistently denied? The real answer we don't know for sure. However, there have been some reactions in regards to it. In an article printed in the Washington Post, former chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, Professor Seymour Siegel, questioned whether Gypsies are indeed a distinct ethnic group, a strong remark considering that their ethnic backgroun...