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

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At the age of 9, Otto Rosenberg was living a simple but happy life, this is until the Nazis tore his family away from their home. He learned that the entire Birkenau Gypsy camp has been liquidated Including his grandmother and cousins and grandchildren were wiped out who had remained in Auschwitz. A Gypsy in Auschwitz proved to be a great addition not only to my personal bookshelf but to my classroom as well.

So the history and the knowledge being written regarding the Sinti and Roma was completely new to myself so I found this read interesting. The German authorities took advantage of the Romani people‘s lack of literacy and actively did whatever they could not to give them the monetary compensation they were entitled. I have read a lot of Holocaust accounts, and am simultaneously disappointed and disturbed that there are still so many facts and stories hidden in the folds of history. With so many stories about the treatment of Gypsies during the Holocaust either untold or lost to history, reading this book was utterly heartbreaking.This was very hard and sad to read, I have read many WWII books but very few talk about the gypsy (Roma) and how suddenly they were all segregated and cast away from anything they already knew just to hide them from the world. Otto's story deserves the widest possible readership and should be added to the reading list of anyone wishing to learn about Europe's largest minority group. This book although a little simplistic will act as a valuable first hand transcript and help ensure the atrocities are not forgotten. The flow was quick and at times I wanted the author to slow down and provide me a little more imagery but understood that from the point of view of a child, you would not necessarily have this.

All because they were viewed as subhuman by the Aryans, and blamed for most of Germany's problems after losing WWI. According to author of Representing the Holocaust in Children's Literature, Lydia Kokkola, it is 'one of the very few books about the Gypsy Holocaust for young readers'.He was on top of the world has he started earning in a factory in an armament factory in Berlin- Lichtenburg. Many works of fiction articulate and capture the horror of Jewish characters and their plight leaving other groups out of the picture.

I knew about the horrors that all the Jewish people faced but I never realised that the Gypsys' took on their plights as well. This book took a very dark subject but spun it in a way that the reader can sympathise but also be compelled to see what is going to happen to the characters.

He founded the Regional Association of German Sinti and Romanies in Berlin and served as its chairman until he died in 2001. I loved following Ottos journey and getting a true reflection of everything before and during his time in Auschwitz. This book is a necessary reminder that no amount of good behaviour, studiousness or military service could make up for having Sinti or Roma blood. You get a real sense of what Otto was like as a person and in the main, many seemed to like him and whilst he fell on his feet in getting certain jobs in the camps, he far from had it easy. He works, scrounges food whenever he can, witnesses and suffers horrific violence, and is driven close to death by illness more than once.