The Roma found themselves among the first victims of Nazi policies.
They were sent to die in the gas vans of Chelmno, and were subjected to gruesome experiments in the extermination camps. Up to 500,000 Roma are believed to have been killed under fascist rule.
Yet post-war European governments on both sides of the Iron Curtain denied the Roma Holocaust survivors any recognition or aid.
For denial of the Roma Holocaust, see Downplaying the Porrajmos: The Trend to Minimize the Romani Holocaust":
A widespread interpretation of its meaning is found at “Holocaust” on the Anti-Defamation League’s website, where it states:
The Holocaust was the systematic persecution and annihilation of more than six million Jews as a central act of state by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Although millions of others, such as Romani, Sinti (sic), homosexuals, the disabled and political opponents of the Nazi regime were also victims of persecution and murder, only the Jews were singled out for total extermination (ADL, 2000).
A more scholarly interpretation, and one which names Romanies correctly, is found in the German government’s handbook on Holocaust education:
Recent historical research in the United States and Germany does not support the conventional argument that the Jews were the only victims of Nazi genocide. True, the murder of Jews by the Nazis differed from the Nazis’ killing of political prisoners and foreign opponents because it was based on the genetic origin of the victims and not on their behavior. The Nazi regime applied a consistent and inclusive policy of extermination-based on heredity-only against three groups of human beings: the handicapped, Jews, and Sinti and Roma (“Gypsies”). The Nazis killed multitudes, including political and religious opponents, members of the resistance, elites of conquered nations, and homosexuals, but always based these murders on the belief, actions and status of those victims. Different criteria applied only to the murder of the handicapped, Jews, and “Gypsies.” Members of these groups could not escape their fate by changing their behavior or belief. They were selected because they existed (Milton, 2000:14)
The second aspect of the book-and the one which concerns me most-is the tone in which it is written. This is a book about Romani people written by someone who does not know any Romani people, and who admits to deliberately not seeking their input in its compilation. No Romanies are credited in the acknowledgments. Lewy has no expertise in Romani Studies, and apart from a couple of recent articles excerpted from the same book, he has never published anything on Romanies before this. It reflects one facet of a disturbing trend which seems to be emerging in Holocaust studies, most recently expressed on an Australian-based Holocaust website which proclaims that “just mentioning Gypsies in the same breath as the Jewish victims is an insult to their memory! (David, 2000).” This statement differs hardly at all from that made by the Darmstadt city mayor who, in an address to the municipal Sinti and Roma Council, said that their request for recognition “insults the honor of the memory of the Holocaust victims” by aspiring to be associated with them (Anon., 1986), evidence that this kind of antigypsyism extends well beyond the confines of Holocaust scholarship. The motive for writing this book, therefore, was evidently not to add to our knowledge of Roma, but to support the Jewish “uniquist” position, Lewy’s swan-song upon his retirement from The University of Massachusetts.
