Since 1982 a memorial stone in the village of Aleksandrovka near the Russian city of Smolensk remembers the approximately 180 Roma who were shot by members of the SS-Einsatzgruppe B (mobile killing unit) in spring 1942.
Since the 19th century a large number Roma lived in the Smolensk area, many of them settled and employed in farming. Following the restructuring of agriculture by the Bolsheviks in the 1920s and 1930s a number of so called »Gypsy kolkhozes« were formed, the expression »Gypsy« was considered to be value-free in Russian. Various ethnic groups live in the village of Aleksandrovka, the Roma constituting the majority. They worked in the »National Gypsy Kolkhoz Stalin's Constitution«. When the Wehrmacht occupied the Smolensk area in 1941 they were followed by the SS-Einsatzgruppe B (mobile killing unit). The SS immediately began persecuting and murdering Jews, Roma and political opponents. On April 23, 1942 officers turned up in Aleksandrovka and asked the kolkhoz' accountants for a list of all Roma. Next morning at 5 am SS-men broke into the houses and rounded up the Roma of Aleksandrovka on a square, some men were forced to dig pits nearby. After an »Examination« the SS-members forcefully drove the men, women and children to the nearby pits. Step-by-step whole families had to come up to the pits' edges, undress and hand off their valuables. After that they were murdered by pistol shots from single perpetrators. All in all approximately 180 Roma died on April 24, 1942. In the whole region members of the SS-Einsatzgruppe B shot Soviet Roma.
After the German occupation a Soviet board of inquiry ascertained that 176 Roma were shot in Aleksandrovka on April 24, 1942. 62 women, 52 children and 29 could be identified, the identity of a further 33 persons remained unclear.
After the end of WWII some Roma returned to Aleksandrovka, some of them had fled, others served in the Red Army. Along with the surviving families they made up the majority of inhabitants of the small village. Surviving witnesses had immediately after the occupation testified to a government board of inquiry and kept up trying to recall the fate of the Roma of Aleksandrovka. Much on the occurrences was passed on orally, sometimes myths were formed on the Aleksandrovka shootings. For the Soviet Roma Aleksandrovka became a central memorial site. In the 1960s an initiative for a memorial originated by some survivors attracted support from the »National Gypsy Theatre Romén«. This theatre company constituted a kind of political representation of the Soviet Roma, it supported the project politically and financially. In 1974 the commissar for the Smolensk region approved the erection of a memorial, which only materialized in 1982. The inscription on the simple memorial stone reads: »Here lie buried 176 peaceful inhabitants of Aleksandrovka who were shot on April 24, 1942 by the German-Fascist invaders«. Typical for all Soviet memorials the ethnicity of the victims is not mentioned. Nevertheless remains the Aleksandrovka memorial the only one from Soviet tomes remembering the fate of the Roma. Thereby it takes on an important role as a memorial site for Roma in the Russian Federation.
- Name
- памятник установленный цыганам - жертвам фашизма в Александровке
- Open
- The memorial is accessible at all times.