Glossary

Racial eugenics (in German Rassenhygiene) regarded a racially defined people of a region as a biological-hereditary body that needed to be kept “healthy”. Racial eugenics defined certain groups as harmful so that they had to be eliminated as a “hygienic” measure. In Germany, the racial eugenics affected not only Jews, but also Sinti and Roma. The Racial Eugenics Research Unit was established in 1936 under the leadership of Robert Ritter, an anthropologist. Ritter and the members of the Research Unit defined who were to be considered “gypsies” and carried out forcible and involuntary examinations, interviews and research on them. The aim of this research was to prove that there were links between supposed social and physical attributes. The information gathered by Ritter and his colleagues formed the basis for forced sterilisations, arrests and deportations to concentration and death camps in the genocide against the Roma and Sinti.