Internment and Military Service.

A solution of the Gypsy question in World War One? This euphemistic term usually refers to the genocide against Roma, Sinti, Lovara, Kalderash, Yenish people, and other itinerant communities committed by the National Socialist regime during the Second World War. However, as early as shortly after 1918, politicians of the newly founded First Austrian Republic suggested that Gypsy Nuisance, a racist term, no longer existed due to World War One. How did they come to this assumption? Racism against these sections of the population had a long history. Half a century before National Socialism, politicians, scientists, and bureaucrats throughout Europe already tried to solve the Gypsy question, also in Austria-Hungary. Their demands included forced labour, assimilation, and adoption as well as deportation and internment in camps. Due to civil rights, it was impossible to put these measures into practice; however, this changed with World War One. Thousands of people were forced into camps as part of surveillance activities against refugees fleeing from Galicia and Bukovina to the Austrian hinterland, and as a result of arrests and deportations of politically suspicious persons behind the front lines. They all had one thing in common: according to the Austro-Hungarian census, they were not German. This included individuals defined as gypsies by the authorities. They were deported, interned in camps, or enlisted into military service. One camp in particular gained notoriety due to maltreatment and high mortality rates and was known even among high-ranking officials in Vienna: Hainburg an der Donau.