Roaming the countryside in caravans, earning their living as musicians, peddlers, and fortune-tellers, the Gypsies and their elusive way of life represented an affront to Nazi ideas of social order, ...hard work, and racial purity. They were branded as “asocials”, harassed, and eventually herded into concentration camps where many thousands were killed. But until now the story of their persecution has either been overlooked or distorted. In The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies, Guenter Lewy draws upon thousands of documents—many never before used—from German and Austrian archives to provide the most comprehensive and accurate study available of the fate of the Gypsies under the Nazi regime. Lewy traces the escalating vilification of the Gypsies as the Nazis instigated a widespread crackdown on the “work-shy” and “itinerants”. But he shows that Nazi policy towards Gypsies was confused and changeable. At first, local officials persecuted gypsies, and those who behaved in gypsy-like fashion, for allegedly anti-social tendencies. Later, with the rise of race obsession, Gypsies were seen as a threat to German racial purity, though Himmler himself wavered, trying to save those he considered “pure Gypsies” descended from Aryan roots in India. Indeed, Lewy contradicts much existing scholarship in showing that, however much the Gypsies were persecuted, there was no general programme of extermination analogous to the “final solution” for the Jews. Exploring in heart-rending detail the fates of individual Gypsies and their families, The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies makes an important addition to our understanding both of the history of this mysterious people and of all facets of the Nazi terror.
This book, designed as a resource for scholars, educators, activists and non-specialist readers, presents the results of new research on the role of Romani groups in European culture and society ...since the nineteenth century. Its specific focus is on the ways in which Romani actors, in their interactions with non-Romanies, have contributed to shaping Europe’s public spaces. Twelve chapters recount the experiences and accomplishments of individuals and families, from across Europe (England, France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Finland) and Canada. All based on new research, and maintaining a focus on the real lives and activities of Romani people rather than on the perspective of the majority societies, these studies exemplify the creative presence of Romani people in the fields of politics, economics and culture. We see them as writers, artists and performers, political activists and resistance fighters, traders and entrepreneurs, circus and cinema managers and purveyors of popular science. Sensitive to the ambivalent position from which Roma act, the cases are linked and contextualized by a general introduction and by section introductions written by leading scholars of Romani studies with expertise in history, ethnography, musicology, literary and discourse studies and visual culture. The volume is richly illustrated, including many images that have never been published before, and includes an extensive bibliography / guide to further reading. Contributors to the volume: Begoña Barrera, Beatriz Carrillo de los Reyes, Malte Gasche, Paweł Lechowski, Anna G. Piotrowska, Laurence Prempain, Juan Pro, Eve Rosenhaft, Carolina García Sanz, María Sierra, and Tamara West.
The article explores the underrepresentation of Romani perspectives and self-perceptions in historical research. It offers a methodological reflection on the role of petitions in Romani history ...before unearthing the contents of Germany’s compensation files. These state administrative files contain numerous acts of Romani self-assertion in the face of a rigid bureaucratic system. German Sinti and Roma countered majority society's practices of de-individualization through deliberate subjective action that challenged the authorities long before collective action in the late 1970s. The study reveals strategies that Roma developed to be entitled to the compensation due to Nazi victims. For example, they tried to provoke reaction through rhetorical stridency; organized help from third parties, professionals, and laypersons; or escalated to superiors. In doing so, the article reveals the complexity of the administrative practice of compensation for Nazi injustice, including actors such as the lawyers hired by Roma. Their ambivalent role and interests, which are sometimes supportive, sometimes less altruistic, hold potential for further research.
Protected Children, Regulated Mothers examines child protection in Stalinist Hungary as a part of twentieth-century (East Central, Eastern, and Southeastern) European history. Across the communist ...bloc, the increase of residential homes was preferred to the prewar system of foster care. The study challenges the transformation of state care into a tool of totalitarian power. Rather than political repression, educators mostly faced an arsenal of problems related to social and economic transformations following the end of World War II. They continued rather than cut with earlier models of reform and reformatory education. The author’s original research based on hundreds of children’s case files and interviews with institution leaders, teachers, and people formerly in state care demonstrates that child protection was not only to influence the behavior of children but also to regulate especially lone mothers’ entrance to paid work and their sexuality. Children’s homes both reinforced and changed existing patterns of the gendered division of work.
A major finding of the book is that child protection had a centuries-long common history with the “solution to the Gypsy question” rooted in efforts towards the erasure of the perceived work-shyness of “Gypsies.”
Antiziganism is a common phenomenon on the big screen. To examine this issue from various perspectives, acclaimed scholars and junior researchers, filmmakers and human rights activists, both Roma and ...non-Roma, gathered in Berlin in 2018 and presented their research output, shared personal testimonies and discussed films at the international conference “Antigypsyism and Film“. The present bilingual volume is a documentation of the conference proceedings. It contains academic articles and essays as well as interviews with filmmakers grouped in four thematic sections: antigypsyism in film, the question of ethics, strategies of subversion and antigypsyism in comparison to other forms of racism.; Antiziganismus ist Normalität auf der großen Leinwand. Um dieses Problem aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven zu untersuchen, versammelten sich Wissenschaftler und Nachwuchsforscher, Filmemacher und Menschenrechtsaktivisten – Roma wie Nicht-Roma – 2018 in Berlin zu einer internationalen Tagung: “Antiziganismus und Film“. Sie präsentierten ihre Forschungsergebnisse, teilten persönliche Zeugnisse und diskutierten Filme. Der vorliegende zweisprachige Band dokumentiert diese in ihrer Form bisher einzigartige Tagung. Der Tagungsband umfasst wissenschaftliche Artikel und Essays sowie Interviews mit Filmemachern, unterteilt in vier thematische Abschnitte: Antiziganismus im Film, Fragen der Ethik, Strategien der Subversion und Antiziganismus im Verhältnis zu anderen Ressentiments.
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