Please note: Zilli Schmidt’s testimony is currently only available in German.

Cäcilie “Zilli” Schmidt (née Reichmann) was a Sintezza and survivor of the National Socialist genocide of the Sinti and Roma.

Born on July 10, 1924 in Hinternah, in the German state of Thuringia, she grew up with four siblings in the family’s fairground business. After the National Socialists seized power and persecution began, the family initially managed to evade arrest by moving frequently. However, during a stay in Strasbourg in 1942, Zilli Schmidt was caught by the Gestapo and deported to the Lety concentration camp in Pilsen. After successfully escaping, she was arrested again in Eger in 1943 and initially imprisoned in Pankrác prison in Prague, from where she was subsequently deported to the so-called “gypsy camp” in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Several relatives, including her parents and her four-year-old daughter Gretel, were gassed the following night. In 1944, Zilli Schmidt and other prisoners were transferred to Ravensbrück concentration camp on Josef Mengele’s orders. Zilli Schmidt eventually managed to escape and successfully went into hiding until the end of the war.

She later appeared as a witness in the trial against the former SS-Rottenführer (section leader) Ernst-August König, among others. However, she did not tell her own story until later. Books about her life were published in 2016 and 2020. In 2021, she received the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Zilli Schmidt died in Mannheim on October 21, 2022 at the age of 98.

Schmidt, Zilli (2021): “God Had Something in Store for Me!”: Memories of a German Sintezza. Edited by Jana Mechelhoff-Herezi and Uwe Neumärker. Berlin: Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.