Origin of the gypsies as to nationality
As I have already mentioned, the gypsies themselves like to leave this point vague. Therefore no point of the evidence contains so many conflicting statements as this particular one. Beiglboeck himself cannot make any definite statements as to this matter, but as he used to speak to all of them, they must all have understood German. Among the names we also find plenty of Slav names, having a Polish, Ukrainian, or Southern Slav sound. In the old Austrian Monarchy, these people were jumbled together a good deal and in their wanderings they also entered German Reich territory. After the break-up of the Monarchy, some of the so-called Carpatho-Russians became citizens of Hungary or Slovakia. In the eastern provinces of the German Reich, there were many Poles or Germanized persons with Polish names. The mere name, therefore, admits of no conclusion as to nationality. The fact, however, that most of them could make themselves understood in the German language allows the conclusion that none of the persons subjected to experiments were imported from the Allied countries.
The witness Fritz Pillwein states in his affidavit (Beiglboeck 32, Beiglboeck Ex. 21):
“The experimental subjects in most cases spoke their gypsy dialect. Many of them were obviously of Slav origin. I did not see identification papers, however, as this was quite impossible in a concentration camp and as I did not ask them anything of the kind, I cannot make any exact statement regarding the nationality of the individual gypsies. I did not ask them because the gypsies were very primitive people, and some of them did not even know their own birthdays.”
The witness Mettbach stated when questioned by Dr. Steinbauer (Tr. p. 9729):
“Dr. Steinbauer: What language did you speak among yourselves?
“Witness Mettbach: Mostly gypsy language.
“Q. What was the citizenship of the individual experimental subjects?
“A. Mostly they were Germans. There were a lot of Austrians and a lot of them came from East Prussia and Upper Silesia and the Burgenland [Province bordering Austria-Hungary].”