Prisoner lists of the so-called Gypsy concentration camps from the perspective of onomastics

Abstract

Two concentration camps were established for Roma people in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in 1942. Roma from Bohemia were deported to Lety and Roma from Moravia to the camp near Hodonín u Kunštátu, before most of them were murdered in the “Gypsy family camp” (Zigeunerlager) in Auschwitz II. Birkenau. The lists of prisoners are valuable not only for historians (they were published previously by the historian Ctibor Nečas), but also for onomastics, as they allow us to analyse the naming practise of Czech and Moravian Roma in the pre-war period. There are 325 unique surnames on these lists, with most of them being Czech or German, and they thus demonstrate the connection with the territory and its language(s). The study discusses the most common Roma surnames in Moravia (e.g. Daniel, Holomek, Burianský) and in Bohemia (e.g. Růžička, Janeček, Vrba) as well as the surnames of Sinti living in the Czech borderland regions (e.g. Winter). It is shown that the surnames of Roma from Bohemia and Moravia were different due to the historical and social reasons. They were mostly derived from personal names (e.g. Florián) and place names (e.g. Dubský), they were motivated by the occupation adopted (e.g. Kovář ‘smith’) or the character and appearance of the individual (e.g. Malík ‘small’). After the war, only 583 of the 4,870 Roma who had been imprisoned returned.