Eva Justin (23 August 1909 – 11 September 1966) was a German anthropologist who was active during the
Nazi era. She specialised in
scientific racism
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies ...
. Her work contributed to the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
crimes against the
Sinti
The Sinti (also ''Sinta'' or ''Sinte''; masc. sing. ''Sinto''; fem. sing. ''Sintesa'') are a subgroup of Romani people mostly found in Germany and Central Europe that number around 200,000 people. They were traditionally itinerant, but today o ...
and
Roma peoples.
Early life
Born in
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...
in 1909, the daughter of a railroad official, Eva Justin served as an assistant to Nazi psychologist
Robert Ritter.
Justin originally trained as a nurse and received her doctorate in anthropology from the University of Berlin in 1943 despite not having followed the normal university procedure to do so.
Eugen Fischer
Eugen Fischer (5 July 1874 – 9 July 1967) was a German professor of medicine, anthropology, and eugenics, and a member of the Nazi Party. He served as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, ...
mentored her through her doctoral thesis and final exams, and
ethnologist
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...
Richard Thurnwald was a reviewer.
Justin was one of the early registered nurses to earn a PhD.
Speaking
Romani
Romani may refer to:
Ethnicities
* Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia
** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule
* Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
, she earned the trust of Roma and Sinti people. Her doctoral dissertation was titled "Lebensschicksale artfremd erzogener Zigeunerkinder und ihrer Nachkommen" ("Biographical destinies of Gypsy children and their offspring who were educated in a manner inappropriate for their species").
Holocaust
The children that Justin studied had been selected for deportation, but this was delayed until she completed her research and received her PhD. The children were later sent to the "
Gypsy family camp" at
Auschwitz on 6 May 1944.
Soon after their arrival,
Josef Mengele
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arrived at Auschwitz. Some of the children were subjected to
his experiments and most were eventually killed in the
gas chamber
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide.
History
...
. About 39 or 40 children that Justin had studied were sent to Auschwitz in 1944, and all but four died before the end of the war, many before her thesis was published. Thirty-nine children from an orphanage in
Mulfingen
Mulfingen is a town in the district of Hohenlohe in Baden-Württemberg in Germany.
Friedrich Wohnsiedler Friedrich Wohnsiedler (23 November 1879 – 10 February 1958) was a New Zealand butcher, orchardist, viticulturist and wine-maker. He was b ...
, who were the
subjects of Justin's doctoral thesis, were registered at Auschwitz on 12 May 1944. She searched for anthropological subjects in
concentration camps
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
.
Justin was a senior member of the Race Hygiene Research Center. She wrote in the foreword to a research paper that she hoped to provide the basis for further
racial hygiene
The term racial hygiene was used to describe an approach to eugenics in the early 20th century, which found its most extensive implementation in Nazi Germany (Nazi eugenics). It was marked by efforts to avoid miscegenation, analogous to an animal ...
laws to stop the flow of "unworthy primitive elements" into the German population. Her position was that
Romani people
The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sig ...
could not be assimilated because "they usually became asocial as a result of their primitive thinking, and that attempts to educate them should be stopped." Justin proposed
sterilization for Romani people, except for those with "pure Gypsy blood." She was present when the Sinti and Roma deportations to concentration camps were organized.
In 1958, the
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...
district attorney initiated an investigation into Justin's wartime actions, but the investigation was closed in 1960,
after the district attorney had concluded that her actions were subject to the
statute of limitations
A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In ...
. Frankfurt magistrates found insufficient evidence to prosecute Justin in 1964, believing that Justin had not known her ideas would lead to the children being sent to concentration camps and that survivors could not specifically remember her striking them. Justin had based her work on the ideas of Robert Ritter and no longer believed them.
In post-war West Germany, Justin worked as a psychologist for the Frankfurt police, even acting as a consultant to the legal system for compensation cases for Holocaust survivors. She died from cancer in 1966 in
Offenbach am Main, a city on the outskirts of Frankfurt.
See also
*
Romani genocide
The Romani Holocaust or the Romani genocide—also known as the ''Porajmos'' ( Romani pronunciation: , meaning "the Devouring"), the ''Pharrajimos'' meaning the hard times ("Cutting up", "Fragmentation", "Destruction"), and the ''Samudaripen'' ( ...
Notes
References
Further reading
* ''A Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts'' By Samuel Totten, William S. Parsons Publisher: Routledge; 2 edition (2004) Language: English
* ''Sinti and Roma: Gypsies in German-speaking society and literature'' By Susan Tebbutt Language: English
* ''Auf Wiedersehen im Himmel: Die Geschichte der Angela Reinhardt (See You in Heaven: The Story of Angela Reinhardt''). Publisher: Arena (2005) Language: German One of the children at St. Josephs who was escaped deportation and survived the war.
External links
*.
St. Josefspflege
{{DEFAULTSORT:Justin, Eva
1909 births
1966 deaths
Scientists from Dresden
German psychologists
German women psychologists
Young German Order members
Proponents of scientific racism
Romani genocide perpetrators
Deaths from cancer in Germany
20th-century psychologists