the roma holocaust in academic memory
“Are there human lives which have so completely lost the attribute of legal status that that their continuation
has permanently lost all value, both for the bearer of that life and for society?”
~Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche, Permitting the Destruction of Unworthy Life [1]
Though an expansive and vibrant academic literature on the Jewish Holocaust (shoah) has been ongoing for quite some time now, the experiences and voices of the Roma, Sinti and Gypsies are largely absent in the academic record. Perhaps the most oft-cited difference between the persecution of the Jews during the Second World War, and that of the Roma (and other’s targeted by Nazi policies), has been centered on the intentions of the Nazis. While it is clear in the Holocaust literature that the Nazi “Final Solution” was indeed aimed at the total elimination of the Jewish people, some scholars have suggested that the Nazi intentions in solving the “Gypsy question” are much more ambiguous. For instance Yehuda Bauer[2] and others have suggested that the Holocaust is an exclusively Jewish historical event, hinting that the Roma represented an afterthought in Nazi racial domination. Other like Lewy have claimed that the racial basis of persecution that legitimated the total elimination of the Jews is notably absent in relation to the Roma[3]. Ironically, this type of logic mirrors the same defence used by High German officials to undermine Roma claims to reparations after the war. According to these bureaucrats, the ‘Gypsies’ were not persecuted for racial reasons, but due to their universally “asocial” behavior and penchant towards criminality [4]. As many other scholars have noted however,“[a]ny system that categorizes all members of a group as anti-social is obviously establishing a racial definition based on heredity” [5]. Accordingly many authors have cited the racial prohibitions of the Nuremburg Laws (among others) and the forced sterilization of Roma—hence biological extermination of Roma—as reasons to believe that the Roma endured genocide at the hands of the Nazis [6][7][8]. The contemporary dates of these publications suggest that the debates about whether or not the persecution of the Roma qualifies as a racially motivated genocide are ongoing.
In Hancock's Jewish Responses to the Porrajmos (the Romani Holocaust) [9] he suggest that this ambiguity can largely be attributed to the relative newness of academic attention to the fate of the Roma, Sinti and Gypsies during the War. He coins the Romani term Porrajmos (devouring) to qualify the distinctly Romani experiences of genocide during the War. Though the exact numbers of Roma deaths during the War are still being debated, we must ask, for members of these Roma and Sinti communities what did this orchestrated attempt at extermination mean and how is it remembered today? Even at the lower estimate of 200,000 murders (as opposed to the 500,000-1.5 million estimated by some scholars), the elimination of Roma required the complacency and sometimes, eager complicity of municipal and state governments in Occupied Europe. This is where some of the real reticence to acknowledge Roma memories of the Holocaust may be located. The commonality of racist attacks on Roma populations across Europe by neo-Nazi groups being reported in contemporary media hints that beliefs of cultural inferiority that undergirded the Nazi exterminations have not been fully expunged. Furthermore in countries like France and Italy, where large national scale attempts to expel Roma from these countries are ongoing, politicians often publically suggest that the Roma are prone to criminality and lack the desire or ability to integrate into “European” society (see for example ….). How do these statements sit with the notion that the persecution of the Roma is or should be confined to Nazi Germany, or to the Second World War?
Knowledge claims made about the Roma by social and natural scientists have historically been deeply implicated in the persecution of these communities. Querying this legacy forces us to expand the web of those involved in the Roma Holocaust—whether as perpetrators, survivors, victims, or those who were complacent. Therefore in compiling a selected bibliography of academic sources on eugenics, Roma history and Nazi policies during the War I hope to contribute to this widening. In reading these sources I would suggest that eugenic concepts and ideology, already prominent in Europe at the time of the Nazi rise to power, provided a platform for the Nazi-lead (re)building of a new European national order. The collusion of a host of European scientists, anthropologists, criminologists and medical doctors culminated in the legitimation of a racial science that evaluated the worthiness of individual bodies in this new order. As historians of eugenics have made clear, this racial science hinged on biopolitical discourses that sought to defend the body politic from the biological degeneration of the European gene pool (Turda 2010:5). The unworthiness of life attributed to Roma during the War manifest in a potential to be murdered, sterilized, or otherwise eliminated. The importance of this work is that it compels us to place the abjection of the Roma in contradistinction to the ongoing and multi-national scientific rendering of a biologically desirable European citizenry. There is a small and growing literature on Roma experiences of the Holocaust, but there is much work to be done in expanding it in conversation with existing historical memory about the Holocaust.
[1] Binding, Karl and Alfred Hoche (1920) Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Leben Sunwerten Lebens (Permitting the Destruction of Unworthy Life). Leipzig: Felix Meiner.
[2] Bauer, Yehuda (1978) The Holocaust in Historical Perspective. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
[3] Lewy, Guenter (2000) The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[4] See, Margalit, Gilad (1997) The justice system of the FRG and its policy regarding the persecution of the Gypsies during the Third Reich. Holocaust and Genocide Studies 7(3): 330–50.
[5] Friedlander, Henry (1995) The origins of Nazi genocide. From the Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, Pp. 51.
[6] See Weiss-Wendt, Anton and Rory Yeomans (2013) Introduction: Holocaust and Historiographical Debates on Racial Science. In Racial Science in Hitler’s New Europe 1938-1945. Anton Weiss-Wendt and Rory Yeomans, eds. Pp. 1-33. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
[7] See also, Kenrick, Donald and Grattan Puxon (2009) Gypsies under the Swastika. Hertfordshire: University of Hertfordshire Press.
[8] Fraser, Angus (1995) The Gypsies. Oxford: Blackwell.
[9] Hancock, Ian (1989) Jewish Response to the Porajjmos (the Romani Holocaust). http://www.chgs.umn.edu/histories/victims/romaSinti/jewishResponses.html
has permanently lost all value, both for the bearer of that life and for society?”
~Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche, Permitting the Destruction of Unworthy Life [1]
Though an expansive and vibrant academic literature on the Jewish Holocaust (shoah) has been ongoing for quite some time now, the experiences and voices of the Roma, Sinti and Gypsies are largely absent in the academic record. Perhaps the most oft-cited difference between the persecution of the Jews during the Second World War, and that of the Roma (and other’s targeted by Nazi policies), has been centered on the intentions of the Nazis. While it is clear in the Holocaust literature that the Nazi “Final Solution” was indeed aimed at the total elimination of the Jewish people, some scholars have suggested that the Nazi intentions in solving the “Gypsy question” are much more ambiguous. For instance Yehuda Bauer[2] and others have suggested that the Holocaust is an exclusively Jewish historical event, hinting that the Roma represented an afterthought in Nazi racial domination. Other like Lewy have claimed that the racial basis of persecution that legitimated the total elimination of the Jews is notably absent in relation to the Roma[3]. Ironically, this type of logic mirrors the same defence used by High German officials to undermine Roma claims to reparations after the war. According to these bureaucrats, the ‘Gypsies’ were not persecuted for racial reasons, but due to their universally “asocial” behavior and penchant towards criminality [4]. As many other scholars have noted however,“[a]ny system that categorizes all members of a group as anti-social is obviously establishing a racial definition based on heredity” [5]. Accordingly many authors have cited the racial prohibitions of the Nuremburg Laws (among others) and the forced sterilization of Roma—hence biological extermination of Roma—as reasons to believe that the Roma endured genocide at the hands of the Nazis [6][7][8]. The contemporary dates of these publications suggest that the debates about whether or not the persecution of the Roma qualifies as a racially motivated genocide are ongoing.
In Hancock's Jewish Responses to the Porrajmos (the Romani Holocaust) [9] he suggest that this ambiguity can largely be attributed to the relative newness of academic attention to the fate of the Roma, Sinti and Gypsies during the War. He coins the Romani term Porrajmos (devouring) to qualify the distinctly Romani experiences of genocide during the War. Though the exact numbers of Roma deaths during the War are still being debated, we must ask, for members of these Roma and Sinti communities what did this orchestrated attempt at extermination mean and how is it remembered today? Even at the lower estimate of 200,000 murders (as opposed to the 500,000-1.5 million estimated by some scholars), the elimination of Roma required the complacency and sometimes, eager complicity of municipal and state governments in Occupied Europe. This is where some of the real reticence to acknowledge Roma memories of the Holocaust may be located. The commonality of racist attacks on Roma populations across Europe by neo-Nazi groups being reported in contemporary media hints that beliefs of cultural inferiority that undergirded the Nazi exterminations have not been fully expunged. Furthermore in countries like France and Italy, where large national scale attempts to expel Roma from these countries are ongoing, politicians often publically suggest that the Roma are prone to criminality and lack the desire or ability to integrate into “European” society (see for example ….). How do these statements sit with the notion that the persecution of the Roma is or should be confined to Nazi Germany, or to the Second World War?
Knowledge claims made about the Roma by social and natural scientists have historically been deeply implicated in the persecution of these communities. Querying this legacy forces us to expand the web of those involved in the Roma Holocaust—whether as perpetrators, survivors, victims, or those who were complacent. Therefore in compiling a selected bibliography of academic sources on eugenics, Roma history and Nazi policies during the War I hope to contribute to this widening. In reading these sources I would suggest that eugenic concepts and ideology, already prominent in Europe at the time of the Nazi rise to power, provided a platform for the Nazi-lead (re)building of a new European national order. The collusion of a host of European scientists, anthropologists, criminologists and medical doctors culminated in the legitimation of a racial science that evaluated the worthiness of individual bodies in this new order. As historians of eugenics have made clear, this racial science hinged on biopolitical discourses that sought to defend the body politic from the biological degeneration of the European gene pool (Turda 2010:5). The unworthiness of life attributed to Roma during the War manifest in a potential to be murdered, sterilized, or otherwise eliminated. The importance of this work is that it compels us to place the abjection of the Roma in contradistinction to the ongoing and multi-national scientific rendering of a biologically desirable European citizenry. There is a small and growing literature on Roma experiences of the Holocaust, but there is much work to be done in expanding it in conversation with existing historical memory about the Holocaust.
[1] Binding, Karl and Alfred Hoche (1920) Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Leben Sunwerten Lebens (Permitting the Destruction of Unworthy Life). Leipzig: Felix Meiner.
[2] Bauer, Yehuda (1978) The Holocaust in Historical Perspective. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
[3] Lewy, Guenter (2000) The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[4] See, Margalit, Gilad (1997) The justice system of the FRG and its policy regarding the persecution of the Gypsies during the Third Reich. Holocaust and Genocide Studies 7(3): 330–50.
[5] Friedlander, Henry (1995) The origins of Nazi genocide. From the Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, Pp. 51.
[6] See Weiss-Wendt, Anton and Rory Yeomans (2013) Introduction: Holocaust and Historiographical Debates on Racial Science. In Racial Science in Hitler’s New Europe 1938-1945. Anton Weiss-Wendt and Rory Yeomans, eds. Pp. 1-33. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
[7] See also, Kenrick, Donald and Grattan Puxon (2009) Gypsies under the Swastika. Hertfordshire: University of Hertfordshire Press.
[8] Fraser, Angus (1995) The Gypsies. Oxford: Blackwell.
[9] Hancock, Ian (1989) Jewish Response to the Porajjmos (the Romani Holocaust). http://www.chgs.umn.edu/histories/victims/romaSinti/jewishResponses.html