Institutional belief · Child welfare, racial theory and forced assimilation
Yenish family membership as grounds for child removal and re-education
Swiss welfare institutions and cooperating authorities treated belonging to a Yenish family as sufficient evidence that children required removal and re-education away from their families and culture, drawing on racial-biological and social-degeneracy theories rather than individual evidence of parental unfitness.
1 episode
Current understanding
Current understanding
Yenish identity or an itinerant way of life does not establish parental unfitness. Swiss federal institutions now describe the Kinder der Landstrasse program as systematic persecution: even settled families were targeted, a Yenish family name could be enough, and the program sought to estrange children from their families in order to eliminate Yenish culture. The Federal Council has apologised for federal support and in 2025 recognised the persecution of Yenish and Sinti in this context as crimes against humanity under contemporary international law.
Consequences and human impact
Consequences and human impact
From 1926 to 1973 Pro Juventute's Hilfswerk für die Kinder der Landstrasse removed hundreds of children from Yenish families, often with support from cantonal, municipal and federal authorities. Children were placed with foster families, homes, institutions and psychiatric facilities; family contact was deliberately broken. Federal sources state that more than 600 children were taken through the program itself and estimate that similar removals by other organisations and authorities brought the broader total to around 2,000.
How the consequences followed
The program targeted Yenish families as a group, not only families travelling at the time. Swiss federal anti-racism documentation states that even a Yenish surname could be sufficient and that settled families were also pursued.
The card does not claim that every child-welfare intervention involving a Yenish family was motivated by exactly the same ideology or that every placement was administered directly by the federal government. Pro Juventute was a private foundation, but authorities tolerated, financed and cooperated with the program.
The 1973 endpoint marks closure of the central program, not full institutional correction. Federal apology, archival access, compensation and recognition of the persecution developed over subsequent decades.
children removed through Pro Juventute's Kinder der Landstrasse program
estimated wider removals by Pro Juventute, other organisations and authorities
from the program's launch in 1926 to its closure in 1973
Quantitative figures are highlighted only when the cited evidence supports them. The scale of a related catastrophe is not automatically treated as a death toll caused solely by this belief.
Institutional episode
Switzerland
The Swiss program converted group identity into a welfare judgment. Rather than requiring individual proof that a particular family was unsafe, Pro Juventute and cooperating authorities treated Yenish background itself as evidence that children should be separated and assimilated. The program lasted nearly half a century and affected hundreds directly; the Swiss state now describes the policy as systematic persecution rather than child protection.
Institutions
- Pro Juventute — Hilfswerk für die Kinder der Landstrasse
- Swiss federal, cantonal and municipal welfare authorities
- Guardianship and placement authorities
Documented consequences
- Removal of more than 600 children from Yenish families through the central Pro Juventute program
- Placement of children in foster homes, children's homes, educational institutions and psychiatric facilities
- Systematic obstruction of contact between removed children and their families of origin
- Loss of language, family knowledge and cultural identity among many removed children
- Guardianship, institutional confinement and in some cases forced sterilisation affecting members of the targeted minority
- Decades of later archival, compensation and recognition efforts by survivors and Yenish organisations
Institutional machinery
Pro Juventute created the Kinder der Landstrasse program in 1926 to remove children from Yenish families and break their cultural and family ties. Swiss federal historical and anti-racism sources describe the program as based on racial-biological theories and aimed at dissolving the Yenish community. Authorities helped remove children, withdraw parental rights, appoint guardians and place minors in foster homes, institutions and psychiatric facilities. Media exposure finally forced the program's closure in 1973.
Sources and what they establish
- Aktion Kinder der Landstrasse der Pro JuventuteSwiss Federal Office of Culture
- Problematic treatment of the non-sedentary populationSwiss Federal Archives
Federal archival account describing systematic removal and re-education of Yenish children, support by federal, cantonal and municipal bodies and the 1986 federal apology.
Last reviewed: 25/08/2026