BATTLE STORY

The revolt of the “Gypsy families’ camp”

Episode 5/9 : « Overturn History »

By Pierre Chopinaud

The episodes of the series are based on a lecture given by Pierre Chopinaud on May 16, 2025 in Berlin for the European Roman Institute for Art and Culture  (Eriac).

(previously…)

“So we needed, and you still need, to find a way to give people the courage to take action; we needed to develop, through leadership, their agency, as they say in academia. Now, among the leadership techniques used in radical political organizations to motivate people to act is the power of storytelling, which is the inherent power of speech, a power available to anyone with a tongue, a mind, and a heart. Listen to Martin Luther King’s speeches, listen to what makes your heart vibrate, what makes you weep, not with sadness, but with the joy felt by someone about to commit themselves.“

 “

In 1943, Hugo was ten years old. It was from his own lips, 70 years later, that we first heard the story of the Roma and Sinti people who had organized an act of insurrection on May 16, 1944, in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

“

So, in 2010, my friend Saimir and I decided that, in order to give people the courage to act politically, we needed to reshape the narrative that surrounded us. It was then that Saimir, who was already older, remembered two things, or rather, two stories:

The first was the story of Hugo Hollenreiner, which he rediscovered deep in his memory, just as he remembered hearing it from him a few years earlier. Hugo, now deceased, was nearly 70 years old at the time. He was a Sinti of German nationality, born in 1933, the very year Adolf Hitler came to power. Thinking it would protect them, as if to show their loyalty to the German nation to which they felt they belonged, his parents had given him Adolf as a middle name.

But it was all in vain. Following the anti-Roma decree of December 16, 1942, the “Auschwitz erlass,” promulgated by Himmler, which ordered the racial extermination of Roma, Manouche, Sinti, and Travellers, Hugo and his family were arrested and deported in early 1943 to the “Gypsy family camp” at Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

Hugo’s father had been a soldier in the German army before being deported. After the decree, he was dismissed from the army and his citizenship was revoked. He was a young, robust, and courageous man. In 1943, Hugo was ten years old. It was from his own words, 60 years later, that we first heard the story of the Roma and Sinti who had organized an uprising in Birkenau. Hugo remembered it. He had seen it with his own eyes. His father had been a leader and a organizer of this revolt. After May 16, 1944, his father and the other leaders, along with their families, were transferred to other camps. For Hugo, his brothers and sisters, and his father, it was Bergen-Belsen.

“

we had the story we were going to tell, we had the fact on which to base ourselves to overturn history, to transform it from a story of only suffering and passivity, of fear and horror, into a story of action and courage, of heroism and beauty.

“

There it was, we had the story we were going to tell, the fact on which to base our narrative, to transform it from a story of suffering and passivity, of fear and horror, into a story of action and courage, of heroism and beauty.

Then, Saimir remembered a second story. He remembered a little man he had heard at one of those tedious ceremonies of tribute and honor in the lobby of Paris City Hall, in the presence of self-important officials, a few representatives of isolated organizations, and in the absence of anyone from the community. He vaguely remembered that amidst the indifference, the boredom, the hypocrisy that accompanies this kind of ceremony, the little man and his story had struck him. It took him several days to search his memory, his email inbox, his papers, for his name.

It was Raymond Gurême.

“We had found Raymond Gurême. He was waiting for us, sitting on the steps of his son-in-law’s small stilt house, under a yellow lightbulb that illuminated his little hat in the night.”

After a few phone calls, we managed to get in touch with him and arrange to meet him at his home, on the southern edge of the Paris region, one evening in March 2010. We arrived; it was already dark, and we got lost several times. It was on the edge of a forest. For miles, on either side of the paths and roads, there were hundreds and hundreds of caravans. We had an address and a GPS. But even the GPS was completely lost. The Gurême family are a family of traveling Romani and circus performers who live in caravans but who gave up traveling decades ago because this way of life has been made impossible by the repressive policies of the French state. The brothers, the sisters, then the children, the cousins, the relatives, successively bought plots of land in this small corner of the southern Paris region and parked their caravan there, where it has remained ever since. Why this particular spot? We were about to find out.

After wandering for a long time among the paths, dogs, and caravans, without light – the edges of the forest were unlit – we found Raymond Gurême. He was waiting for us, sitting on the steps of his son-in-law’s small stilt house, under a yellow bulb that illuminated his little hat in the night, amidst a cloud of smoke from the small tobacco cigarette that would remain in his mouth all evening.

. 

“We chose the day of the revolt in the “Gypsy family camp of Auschwitz” that Hugo Hollenreiher had told us about, May 16th, we created a scene, and we set it up in front of the great basilica of Saint-Denis, in the north of Paris.”

First, he pointed to a hill in the night above the forest and said, “Do you see that dark mass up there? That’s where I was imprisoned during the war in the Lynas-Montheléy concentration camp with my family. I was 14 years old.”

Years later, he returned to settle down, and behind him, his entire family and community, at the foot of the place that had been the site of their suffering. Why, until his death, may he rest in peace, he never knew.

But that evening, until late into the night, he told us the story of his entire life. The misfortunes, the battles, the resistance, the love, the funny moments. I still remember seeing that night as a vast adventure film, with the real-life hero sitting before me: a man of immense courage and love, despite his small stature and the physical hardships he had endured. How could so much life force be contained in such a small body? It’s a question I still ask myself today.

The fact remains that we had our story and we had our man.

We chose the day of the revolt at the “Gypsy family camp of Auschwitz,” which Hugo Hollenreiher had told us about, May 16th. We created a stage, set it up in front of the great Basilica of Saint-Denis, in northern Paris, the place where, as I mentioned earlier, it is recorded that the Roma, the Manouche, the Sinti were first mentioned in French history, and on the stage we placed Raymond Gurême and his story. It was May 16, 2010: we had created the first Romani Resistance Day.

“We had begun to use history, our stories, to create the power we needed to achieve the change we sought and to give our people the courage to take action.”

We did it with only the resources we and the people around us had.

We began using history, our stories, to create the power we needed to achieve the change we sought and to give our people the courage to take action.

Then, in the months and years that followed, we spread this story, like good news, to our friends in France and other countries.

(To be continued in the next episode…)