To browse Academia. This collection of working papers presents research on the resistance of the Roma during the Holocaust and its aftermath. Conducted by the Tom Lantos Institute in collaboration with ternYpe and La Voix des Rroms, this project addresses historical gaps in understanding Roma experiences during this period. The publication aims to raise awareness of Roma resistance, highlighting their fight for recognition and rights amidst overwhelming persecution, and supporting ongoing research and advocacy for Roma within the context of Holocaust remembrance.
This combination workshop and symposium was designed to foster scholarly cooperation among junior scholars working on Roma and the Holocaust across Europe, as well as histories of prewar persecution and the effects of the Holocaust on Romani communities in its aftermath.
The Roma as many of those called Gypsies in the English-speaking world prefer to call themselves were among the main victims in the time of the Holocaust. Although historians argue whether they were targeted on the same racial grounds as the Jews were and whether their suffering may be compared with the tragedy of the Shoah, it is beyond question that hundreds of thousands of European Romanies perished in the Holocaust, many of them in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau and other Nazi death camps.
For various reasons, partly related to the peculiarities of Romani traditional culture, partly to their marginalized position in contemporary societies, the suffering of the Roma during WW II did not, until recently, become a part of the collective memories of the Romani communities. It was by and large a repressed trauma, which resurfaced only recently, mostly due to the intellectual and political activities of the Romani elites.
It may be argued that the emergence of the memory of suffering among the Roma is a factor that contributes to the construction of a new, transnational Romani identity. We need to recognise our victims and that which we lost, but also the heroism that saved lives and preserved even a small part of our culture. This recognition includes continuously fighting against discrimination, persecution, and racial and ethnic violence, by which, unfortunately, Roma and Sinti are still targeted in many places in Europe in the current moment.
