Rathausausstellung 2026 - Tafel 27: Hugo Franz | Town-hall Exhibition 2026 - Panel 27: Hugo Franz

A musician survives the Porajmos Hugo Franz (1913-2001) completed his secondary education in Dresden. As a member of the Sinti community under the Nazi regime, he was denied the opportunity to obtain a law degree, his preferred choice of studies. He then studied violin at an orchestra school and founded an entertainment orchestra that performed in and around Hamburg. After Heinrich Himmler issued a directive in 1939 prohibiting Sinti and Roma from leaving their place of residence, Hugo Franz disbanded his orchestra and worked at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg. In 1942, he was arrested and taken first to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp and then to the Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp. He survived the Porajmos, the genocide of European Roma and Sinti people, or the Romani Holocaust. His parents, his sister-in-law, and her seven children were murdered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. In 1982, Hugo Franz founded the North Rhine-Westphalia regional association of the Association of German Sinti and Roma, which he headed until 1998.