Herbrecht Josef Reinhardt

Herbrecht Josef Reinhardt was born on June 10, 1927 in Stuttgart to the bandleader Rudolf Reinhardt and his wife Anna. He had five siblings: Siegfried, Martin, Margarete, Rigo, and Adolf. A family friend has told of the great musical talent of all family members and their harmonious life together. As Sinti, Herbrecht Reinhardt and his family were persecuted in the Nazi period. Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, “gypsies” were no longer permitted to move around freely and forced to remain where they were presently resident. In summer 1940, the Reinhardt family could move from Fürstenfeldbrück to Munich. Their last address was Perlacher Straße 100 (today Sintpertstraße 9-15), in a garden allotment settlement. The family was split up in 1942. In summer, the criminal police had Herbrecht’s father, Rudolf Reinhardt, deported to Flossenbürg concentration camp; the SS murdered him just a few months later. In the same year, Herbrecht and his brother Martin, a year younger, were committed to the Piusheim Catholic reformatory near Glonn. Numerous young Sinti and Roma were separated from their families during the Nazi period and forcibly sent to religious reformatories. In Piusheim, the “racially inferior” children and youths were exposed to brutal beatings and detention. Some of them were forcibly sterilized or taken to “youth protection camps.” The Piusheim reformatory handed over Herbrecht and Martin Reinhardt to the Munich criminal police on March 8, 1943. Together with their mother Anna Reinhardt and siblings Margarete, Rigo, and Adolf, they were deported to the “gypsy compound” at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The SS murdered Herbrecht Reinhardt there in spring 1944. His mother and siblings also perished during the genocide against Sinti and Roma. (text Sarah Grandke, editor C. Fritsche, translation P. Bowman)