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“Gypsiness,” Racial Discourse and Persecution: Balkan Roma during the Second World War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
The debate about the Roma's fate throughout the Second World War has taken on a controversial character in recent years. The focal point of this controversy is whether the Roma's persecution was racially motivated or not. Reflecting upon the Roma's treatment throughout the war period, various scholars regard social-political factors such as the wandering way of life and especially the ascription of criminality as the main reasons for discrimination against and persecution of Roma. Ultimately, the authority most responsible for the crimes against Roma in the “Old Reich” was the Criminal Office. An extreme stance is the thesis of G. Lewy, who denies not only the planned character of the persecution but also its racial/racist intention. Lewy also refutes the comparability of the Roma's fate with that of the Jews.
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1. For example, G. Lewy, The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); L. Lucassen, Zigeuner. Die Geschichte eines polizeilichen Ordnungsbegriffes in Deutschland 1700–1945 (Weimar and Vienna: Böhlau, 1996); M. Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid. Die nationalsozialistische “Lösung der Zigeunerfrage” (Hamburg: Christians, 1996); S. Heim S., “Sinti und Roma im Rahmen der Nationalsozialistischen Bevölkerungspolitik in Südosteuropa,” in Dlugoboski W., ed., Sinti und Roma im KL Auschwitz-Birkenau 1943–44 (Oswiecim, Poland: Verlag des staatlichen Museums Auschwitz-Birkenou, 1998), pp. 145–161; Y. Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998); for a contrary point of view see W. Wippermann, “‘Wie mit den Juden?’ Der nationalsozialistische Völkermord an den Sinti und Roma in Politik, Rechtsprechung und Wissenschaft,” Bulletin für Faschismus und Weltkriegsforschung, No. 15, 2000, pp. 3–29; T. Bastian, Sinti und Roma im Dritten Reich. Geschichte einer Verfolgung (Munich: Beck, 2001); Rose Romani, ed., “Den Rauch hatten wir täglich vor Augen”. Der nationalsozialistische Völkermord an den Sinti und Roma (Heidelberg: Wunderhorn, 1999), particularly pp. 344–353.Google Scholar
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4. Current historians frequently avoid the term “Balkans” and prefer the term “Southeastern Europe,” not least because of the pejorative connotations of the former. However, at least in the Nazi era the term “Southeastern Europe” was also not free from pejorative connotations. See numerous articles in Volkstum im Südosten (1939 to September 1944). On the terms “Balkans” and “Southeastern Europe” as describing a historical space, see: V. Papacostea, “La péninsule balkanique et le problème des études compares,” Balcania, Vol. 7, 1943, pp. 3–21; M. Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); M. Todorova, “The Balkans: From Discovery to Invention,” Slavic Review, Vol. 53, No. 2, 1994, pp. 453–482; M. Todorova, “Der Balkan als Analysekategorie: Grenzen, Raum, Zeit,” Geshichte und Gesellschaft. Zeitschrift für Historische Sozialwissenschaft, Vol. 28, No. 3, 2002, pp. 471–492; H. Sundhaussen, “Europa Balcanica. Der Balkan als historischer Raum Europas,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Vol. 25, 1999, pp. 626–653; H. Sundhaussen, “Die Dekonstruktion des Balkanraums (1870 bis 1913),” in Lienau Cay, ed., Raumstrukturen und Grenzen in Südosteuropa (Munich: Südosteuropa Gesellschaft, 2001), pp. 19–41. In this article the name “Balkans” will be used primarily, to emphasize the National Socialist ideological context.Google Scholar
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18. Gypsies in Bulgaria are further mentioned by K. Schickert, who remarks that official Bulgarian statistics included Gypsies. “Bulgariens ägäische Provinz,” Volkstum im Südosten, January 1943, pp. 9–15.Google Scholar
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24. Compare with the similar stereotypes of another opponent, Ostpolen, from Aly and Heim, Vordenker der Vernichtung, p. 91.Google Scholar
25. “Vom Wesensbilde der Serben,” Volkstum im Südosten, January 1942, p. 18.Google Scholar
26. Compare with an earlier article by R. Busch-Zantner, “Die serbische Gesellschaft,” Volkstum im Südosten, July 1941, pp. 101–104: the author presumes that Serbia's political leadership has no shared blood origin and that there have always been parasites among them—numerous Turks, Greeks, Jews, Armenians and descendants of Aromunian nomads (p. 102).Google Scholar
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28. On earlier phenomena of correlation between “anti-Semitism” and “anti-Gypsiesm” in the Middle Ages as well as early modern times, see W. Wippermann, Wie die Zigeuner. Google Scholar
29. See Wippermann, “Wie mit den Juden?” p. 13 and Wie die Zigeuner; Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid; D. Kenrick and G. Puxon, The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies (London: 1972); Heim, Sinti und Roma im Rahmen. Google Scholar
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35. The article titled “Fremdrassen in Deutschland” by J. Römer, Volk und Rasse, No. 3, 1936, pp. 88–95, is indicative of Nazi priorities as well as of the setting of the Gypsies within the same ideological context as the Jews. This article deals with the “non-Jewish strange races” in “Central Germany's district” and claims to have found out “strange racial elements,” explicitly, elements of “such races which do not belong to the general racial standards of our folk” (p. 88). Comparing Gypsies with Jews, the author projects the stereotypes against the latter onto former and notes, “In addition to the Jewish folk and its mixed blood members one can occasionally meet in Germany further strange racial elements which have diverse origins and are variously known depending on their constitution and spreading” (p. 88). Subsequently the author remarks that a group that appears closed like the Jews is the Gypsies and he goes on to focus his statements on a Gypsy family living in a German district.Google Scholar
36. A. M. Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World (New York: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), pp. 15–17.Google Scholar
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39. Constantopoulos (ibid.) deals in his doctoral thesis with the nationality question in Southeastern Europe and even with the instance of the Greek minority in Albania. However, he presents in great detail the concepts of “space,” “space of life” and “nationality” as well as “state” among German and Greek scholars before as well as during the period of National Socialism. In the second chapter he explains theoretical issues of the “space concept” (“Raum und Natur,” “Die Juden und die Nomaden,” “Bauernstand und Raumgefühl”) and claims that the desire for sedentary life and autochthony can be also found among Jews.Google Scholar
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79. See note 23 about divergent criteria as regards Bulgarians, Croats and Serbs as well as the role of the social problematic by ascertaining the “racial descent and belonging.”Google Scholar
80. See L. Hory and M. Broszat, Der kroatische Ustasche- Staat 1941–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutscher Verlag, 1964), pp. 98, 13–57, 93–106, 76, 98. However, Rajko Djuric claims (personal communication, March 2002) that this exception did not concern all the Muslim Roma in Bosnia but only those who had the financial means to buy their lives. This subject has still not been investigated.Google Scholar
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