1. Roma communities today Historical background, culture and current issues Week 5 Class 1: The Romani Holocaust / Roma under State socialism ANTH 4020/5020

2. Today‘s outline 1.Roma and Jews differences and commonalities of Nazi policy? (Text by M. Zimmerman) 2.How many victims? 3.Exercise: Reading Oral History – Statement of a survivor 4.Commemoration of the Romani Holocaust 5.Roma under socialist rule

3. Text (optional): Zimmermann, Michael. 2006. ‘The National Socialist Persecution of Jews and Gypsies: Is a comparison possible?’, in Kenrick (ed.) The Gypsies during the Second World War. 3 – The Final Chapter, Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire press, pp. 135-149.

4. Comparing Nazi persecution of Roma and Jews Discussion: What’s the point in comparing? But also: Why is comparison problematical?

5. What we should avoid: To utilize the crime investigations for generating schematic analogies To seek to equate the fate suffered by the Gypsies under Nazi rule with the mass murder of the Jews in every respect To conclude that Roma always and everywhere comprised the less endangered group On the basis of the problematic equation (with Jews) delegitimize the commemoration of murdered Roma

6. Shared features of persecution (Zimmermann 2006) 1.Both Jews and Gypsies did not declare themselves as a “nation” or “race” or even as unitary people  image rather than identity of those persecuted mattared 2.Classification of persons according to portion of Jewish/Gypsy blood  Nuremberg Laws 3.Racist view of social questions “Popular racism coupled with variants of racial anthropology and race hygiene provided a discourse that transported the traditional behaviour of distancing and differentiation” (Zimmerman 2006, p. 137)

7. Shared features of persecution (Zimmermann 2006) 4.Policy of extermination was not planned over the longer term but would unfold under the conditions of the war 5.Mental strategies to deny and legitimize the murder (deportations labelled as “resettlement” or “journey”) 6.Responsible bodies were “only” carrying out official instructions, orders, denial of own responsibility 7.Effort to dehumanize the victims (mass murder as act of mercy, more humane solution) 8.Justification of killing with anti-Semitic and anti-Gypsy cliches (“useless mouths to feed, enemy spies, partisans)

8. Differences in persecution (Zimmermann 2006) 1.National Socialist racial policy had a hierarchical structure: Jews were the central threat, an arch-enemy to the Aryans vs. Gypsies were a “nuisance”, thiefs, could not endanger the German people as a whole 2.Different images of the enemy due to different history Jews were formerly financially useful vs. Gypsies have always been repressed and marginalized Gypsies were not viewed as religious competitors (Christians and heathens) 3.Part-Gypsy perceived as primary threat (close contact with Non-Gypsies

9. Differences in persecution (Zimmermann 2006) 4.Fixation on negative image of “Gypsies of mixed race”  dual stigma as persons of alien race and asocial  ethnically pure Gypsies should be protected 5.Gestapo persecuted Jews (extreme threat) vs. Criminal police persecuted Gypsies (menace) 6.Strict definition of who was a Jew according to Nuremberg Laws vs. no precise definition of “Gypsies of mixed blood” 7.Imprecise definition of Gypsies made it possible for local persecutors to interpret instructions on their own 8.Jews were persecuted in a more radical way vs. Gypsies were not threatened with murder in all occupied states

10. How many victims? Statistical inconsistencies & impossibilities  characteristical for Gypsy studies Core of the „numbers problem“: insufficient & unreliable census information regarding Gypsies  „From a scholary point of view there is simplyy no way to safely estimate the number of the Holocaust‘s Romani victims“ (Barany 2002, p. 107) Barany critisizes that „Authors who provide „exact“ numbers often base these on second- or third-hand sources, hearsay, and unreliable estimates“. (p. 108).

11. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_nm.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005219&MediaId=359

12. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_nm.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005219&MediaId=359

13. (Barany 2002, p. 109) Estimates 1.-5. partially documented & explain methodology: 6.-12. lack evidence.

14. "A group of Gypsy prisoners, awaiting instructions from their German captors, sit in an open area near the fence in the Belzec concentration camp.“ (Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Archive)

15. Oral History Personal statement of a survivor Please read the statement of Mrs. Janos Rostas Answer the discussion questions together with your neighbor Write down some notes (to share with the class) After 20 minutes we‘ll discuss the answers in the plenum

16. Roma under state-socialism Those countries with highest share of Romani population were under communist rule for 40 years (Since the end of the Habsburg rule) The communists invented the most comprehensive assimilation measures aimed at the Roma In spite of the same (communist) societal system these measures did not take the same shape everywhere The different form of the assimilation policies had a huge impact on the situation of the Roma after the breakdown of communism... and continues until today

17. Barany, Zoltan. 2002. The East European Gypsies. Regime Change, Marginality, and Ethnopolitics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 112-153 (Ch. 4: The Roma under State- Socialism). Short presentation by Grant

18. Commemoration of the Romani Holocaust Approx. half a million Roma murdered by Nazi Germany Long neglected by history: Only recently have Roma begun to demand acceptance among the victims of the Nazi regime. Reasons for this neglect: - overshadowed by Jewish Holocaust (numerically) - (East European) Roma not organized well enough to earlier claim recognition as victims of the Nazis ’

19. “Sites” of commemoration of the Romani Holocaust United states holocaust memorial museum: http://www.ushmm.org/ http://www.ushmm.org/ “The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has extensive documentation pertaining to the National Socialist persecution of the Roma.” For example: A symposium …