Johann Trollmann and Romani Resistance to the Nazis

by Jud Nirenberg

In 1933 Johann Trollmann won Germany's light-heavyweight boxing title. The Nazis would not accept him as the winner because he was Sinto. Many Sinti and Roma (or "Gypsies") had long been involved in the sport, but Nazi ideology demanded that only Aryans excel as fighters. Trollmann used his visibility in the ring for shocking and aggressive protest, turning boxing into politically charged performance art. He fought for his country, and against its prejudice. Roma and Sinti were victims of fascism, but they also were soldiers, activists, and underground resistors. Since World War II, there has been a struggle to obtain greater recognition of this past. From underground fight nights to Madison Square Garden, from secret partisan meetings to concentration camp uprisings, across several continents, this is a hard-hitting look at forgotten history.

Genres: History, Germany, Nonfiction, Race, World War II, Holocaust

222 pages, Paperback

First published March 20, 2016

About the author

See a 2016 talk on the recent book, Johann Trollmann and Romani Resistance to the Nazis. The talk starts around point 1:18:

http://livestream.com/Stoimen/IRMatNY...

Reviews

[Andre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sigh, one of these days we would have to clear whether internationally speaking Sinti are distinct from Roma or not. Within the German speaking area it makes sense as Sinti were the "old guard" and Roma was the term used for the new immigrants from the east. But how does it look internationally?

But whatever, this book is a quick and easy read, but I do wonder where the author gets his information from, as his sources do not seem to cover all of this here.
Nonetheless, I did get some information that I did not know before, like Jewish and other mothers would ask Romani women in the camps to kill their small children before they were gassed, beaten to death, or taken away. You see they thought that Romani women could perform hexes or curses.
What was also interesting: according to what some guy called Jan Yoors heard about Sinti from a Lowara family was that they had no arranged marriages and they doubted that Sinti women had the same morality as Romani wives. But I think Zilli Reichmann mentioned arranged marriages... then again she did not say how strict it was and did mention ways around that, like a fake "bride kidnapping." Plus she stated that she was a Lalleri, which is distinct from Sinti… I guess.
Not to mention, that unlike so many other books for this topic, this here actually puts some positive results into numbers, because according to the Pew Center and other studies Germany actually halved the prejudice against Sinti and Roma in 20 years from 60% (BRD) and 57 % (DDR) holding negative views to 31 % in 2009. Would be nice from some people over here to state that instead of just complaining.
And compared to other countries, Germany does look pretty damn good: 84 % Czech, 78% Slovakia, 69 % Hungary, and 84% Italy.
And just for comparison: 30% of Germans hold unfavorable views of Turks also and yet we have Turks in government.
Plus apparently one of the reasons that there was no joint memorial for all Holocaust victims was because the memorial in Berlin was basically a graveside and the Jewish religion demands that Jewish graves are kept away from gentiles and that in the case of a joint memorial, they would need to include also Slavs, handicapped etc.

However, I did have some more reservations about this book; you see I hope the author means the porajmos is rarely commemorated on a global scale, because in Germany we have more than 100 memorials, not including all the stumbling stones. Furthermore, this has some pretty obvious grammatical, wording and spelling errors. I think no editor ever saw this.

The end is a straight up personal account of the reader and how the Holocaust affected his family. But is that fitting for this book?

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Johann Trollmann and Romani Resistance to the Nazis is by Jud Nirenberg. It is a nonfiction. Through the story of Johann Trollmann, a boxer, Jud Nirenberg tells the story of the Roma and Sinti during the Nazi regime. It gives the history of the Romani (both Roma and Sinti) along with their culture and also tells the story of various Romani victims and survivors. It tells the background of boxing in the world and with emphasis on the Romani. Jud Nirenberg reminds us that not all the stories of the victims during the Nazi regime have been told and that without those, we do not have a complete history. There are few books that delve into this history with as much emphasis on the Romani. It is a difficult book to read due to its historical content; but the actions of a few show that compassion was there, although hidden. We are shown the conflict the Romani had when they were conscripted to fight for the Nazis while their families were being taken to the camps. The book is a must read for those interested in the history of the Holocaust and World War II.

[B. Ross Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This little book centres on one Sinti-German boxer and his personal struggle to live within Nazi Germany ... but it is about more than that; it concerns the attempted genocide perpetrated against the Roma, Sinti, and Manouche people of Europe by the racist German State before and during the war, and about the continuing and intensifying struggle to get that genocide recognised for what it was.

The Holocaust did not happen only to Jews. As an old co-worker of mine, a Jewish survivor of the camps, would say, "Attention must be paid".

The Roma, the Sinti, the Manouche, not nomadic tribespeople wandering across the face of Europe but mostly sedentary homeowners, farmers and factory workers like their "gajo" neighbours, were then and still are targeted for persecution because they are "not German", "not Romanian", "not French", "not Lithuanian", "not Spanish", and for the British Romanitchel "not English" ... we have seen it happening again over the last couple of decades in Central and Eastern Europe, and it has followed Roma refugees into Canada, with the entire ethnic group branded as a criminal culture. This has got to stop; it has got to BE stopped.

[Maria Beltrami · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quando si parla di Olocausto è opinione riconosciuta che si parli dello sterminio degli ebrei europei ad opera del nazismo, eppure i nazisti, nella loro insana sete di "purezza razziale" non hanno ucciso solo ebrei. Certo, ci sono stati gli handicappati, gli omosessuali, i politici, ma questi assassinii non vengono ricompresi nella parola Olocausto in quanto non descrivibili come genocidio. Questo elemento c'è invece nel sistematico sterminio dei Roma e dei Sinti, ovvero degli zingari. C'è da dire che questo sterminio è iniziato un po' prima di Hitler, e che sarebbe volentieri continuato anche dopo, da tanto questo popolo è detestato. Attraverso la storia di Trollman, zingaro Sinti di famiglia non nomade, campione di pugilato privato dai nazisti del titolo e alla fine della vita, della sua famiglia e del suo popolo, con paralleli e intrecci alla storia di un contemporaneo zingaro altrettanto famoso, Django Reinhardt, padre bianco del jazz, Nirenberg ci parla di questo Olocausto dimenticato e di come noi, ancora oggi, non riusciamo a vedere oltre i pregiudizi.
Molto importante, interessante e ben documentato, forse un po' ripetitivo nella parte finale.
Ringrazio KO Publishing e Netgalley per avermi fornito una copia gratuita in cambio di una recensione onesta.

When it comes to Holocaust, it is a recognized opinion that you speak of the extermination of European Jews by Nazism and yet the Nazis, in their insane thirst for "racial purity" did not kill only Jews. Of course, there were handicapped, homosexuals, politicians, but these assassinations are not included in the Holocaust word as they can not be described as genocide. This element, however, is in the systematic extermination of Roma and Sinti, or Gypsies. It has to be said that this extermination started a bit before Hitler, and that it would be gladly continue even afterwards, as this people is so much detested. Through the story of Trollman, Gypsy Sinti of a non-nomadic family, a boxer champion stripped from the Nazis of his title and, at the end, of his life, his family and his people, wirg parallels and intertwines with the story of a contemporaneous gypsy, Django Reinhardt, jazz's white father, Nirenberg tells us about this forgotten Holocaust and how we still can not see beyond the prejudices.
Very important, interesting and well-documented, perhaps a little repetitive in the final part.
I thank KO Publishing and Netgalley for giving me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.