Apart from the SS and police, gestapo and the military police, the perpetrators included Latvian and Ukrainian militia, Croatian Ustashi- fascists, Slovakian Hlinka guardsmen, Serbs and many others who assisted the Germans in the implementation of their racial policies. The number of victims is more difficult to determine in this case than in the case of the Jews. Due to their lifestyle the Roma living in Eastern and Southern Europe were largely excluded from statistical records. Documentary evidence of the mass murder is imprecise and scant, both because in many cases it did not exist and because for a long time nobody made the effort to locate it. There can be no doubt that more than 200,000 Sinti and Roma fell victim to the National Socialist genocide.
Some estimates are as high as half a million.
Unlike with the Jews they had to wait a long time after their persecution before they found help or even understanding. In other words, they and they alone were to blame for any persecution they endured. It was only fitting then that personal files and other documents relating to the minority of Sinti and Roma from the Nazi period should be used. It took a civil rights movement initiated by the Sinti and Roma themselves to arouse sympathy amongst the German population not only for current discrimination but also for persecution suffered in the past.