Why has the Romani holocaust received so little attention?

[gullgal]

It is estimated that somewhere between 250,000 to 500,000 European Roma and Sinti people were systematically exterminated by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. This amounts to between a quarter or a half of the entire population of Roma. They call it the devouring I believe. Yet it is rarely invoked and Roma peoole are heavily discriminated against, and there is little awareness of their historical trauma. I can't understand why. Certainly I only learnt it very late in life.

@gullgal
Roma have been discriminated against for centuries.

My great grandparents and grandparents were Roma and came to England to escape the Pogroms.

They faced additional discrimination in England but loved this country as it took them in, staunch royalists, served in the war etc.

In their own country they faced violence and expulsion from the community.

I think it's the age old mindset that gypsies (hate that term and so did they but using it to describe what they are called by the uneducated) are dirty, thieves, untrustworthy.

Basically, they were and are a people who were misunderstood.

Anything out of the "norm" wasn't to be trusted.

The reality of my family, they were people who would help anyone, loved big, kept their heads down and loved this country.

I truly think no-one cared what happened to them during the war.

Just to add, they weren't seen as decent human beings who deserved to be left to live their lives and their deaths were a solution to a problem, I don't know, it's heartbreaking

I agree. Could it be more remembered within the community?

"I think it's the age old mindset that gypsies (hate that term and so did they but using it to describe what they are called by the uneducated) are dirty, thieves, untrustworthy."

British "gypsies" use the word themselves and in an official capacity so it's unfair to call people who use the word 'uneducated'.

(I know it's considered offensive in some other countries.)

We studied nazi Germany at every possible stage at school and I certainly remember discussing romanis, alongside disabled people, homosexuals, Slavic people, people of colour and of course anyone who disagreed with them politically or otherwise.

I think unfortunately the sheer numbers of Jews murdered as part of the atrocious Final Solution will always make that the headline story. Plus after the war the surviving Jewish Community did a lot to raise awareness of their story and the losses. Plus continuing discrimination prevented some stories coming to light until the 80's/90's, and still they haven't had the prominence of the stories of the Jewish community. But it doesn't mean people aren't aware of the other victims.

I didn't learn it at school but I'm glad that it is being covered now.

I think because they are a very underprivileged group, and, unsurprisingly considering how they are treated, quite private about their lives and culture. Awareness has definitely improved a lot in the last 20 years and I think people usually do mention the Roma when listing victims of the Holocaust. But the Roma community in central and Eastern Europe is very impoverished and discriminated against, so they I guess haven't really got the bandwidth for promoting the story of what happened in WWII.

How it's remembered within the community is interesting. We are Jewish and my mum is Slovak so she grew up around a lot of Roma people and facing discrimination herself as one of the few remaining Jews post WWII. My dad has done research into Jewish musical history and has also looked at Roma music influences on Jewish music in Europe, so he's become quite interested in Roma culture and history. But he says it's very ephemeral and hard to find information, as the Roma, understandably, keep this to themselves as its hard for them to trust outsiders.

Totally agree British gypsies call themselves by that term and are totally entitled to.

My point is it was offensive within my family,.

What I mean by "uneducated" is the people who lump all "gypsies" together as one race, the one's who are uneducated about the difference.

People who are interested in the history of the Roma and their centuries long struggles and educate themselves about the history know the difference

I’ve always known. Approx 6 million Jews died and 4 million others. That’s a lot of “others” but they are well known about.

Not new to me. It was taught in school.

Yes, we know about it. Disabled people too, for example. But it's not talked about as much.

I knew. I learnt about it in school. They started on the disabled.

Except when I just googled Holocaust, the Wikipedia page is focused on Jews. I knew many others had died but didn’t know it was as high as 4 million.

Could it be that the Holocaust itself is about Jews, and that’s why there is a focus on Jewish suffering and deaths, and there’s a different term or description for non-Jews? Just wondering why there’s less of an emphasis on the 4 million others.

I also learned in school, and would say it’s actually well recognised. It is a big part of discussion re the nazi’s. It isn’t part of the discussion re Israel, Jewish holocaust etc.
What I’m clumsily saying is, when Jewish people are talking about the holocaust, or people are talking about the persecution of Jews, they don’t have to mention, ‘and everyone else who was targeted.’.

It’s absolutely right to refer to it when talking about that period of German history.

Like, when discussing violence against women and girls and mentioning domestic violence, it’s not necessary to refer to male victims of DV.

It hasn’t, they talk about it in schools when teaching it

Because the Jews were the primary focus and the other groups much smaller. That 4m was split between the Romani, travellers, LBGT+, Slavs, people of colour, the disabled (mentally and physically), Jehovahs Witnesses, Freemasons, political dissidents (socialists, trade unionists, anarchists). All sorts of smaller groups.

Google ‘porajmos’, as opposed to holocaust or Shoah. It’s the Romani term, and will give you more about the specifics of what happened to Roma and Sinti. Certainly, it was covered in my studies, more at university level, but I think often was traditionally over looked simply in terms of sheer volume - the Shoah covered such mind boggling numbers and was very much more visible, with vast numbers of people who were settled in and assimilated by local communities saw them taken away. Less settled or visible communities like Roma and Sinti simply may have captured less attention. In the same way Aktion T4 (the killing of the disabled) was in far fewer numbers and of people already hidden away. The persecution of gay men would also have been
less visible for obvs reasons.

History in the age of the internet is even more fluid that it used to be.

Estimates of non-Jewish victims vary from 4 million to 11 million https://www.statista.com/chart/24024/number-of-victims-nazi-regime

Were the travellers targeted? Did they venture much beyond Ireland and the UK in the 40's?

I knew that there were other victims, gays for eg, but the scale of the Holocaust against Romani is huge. As I said, a quarter to a half of their entire population. This I didn't know till late in life.

Yes I'm aware OP. And also of the other demographics who were murdered and experimented on during the Holocaust. Lest we forget.

At least 250,000 disabled people were also murdered (multiple times more disabled people than gay people were murdered).

Who is most remembered in the popular general consciousness depends partly on sheer numbers and what was publicly admitted at the time, but also to which groups are still able to speak out now, and in the intervening years.

History doesn't write itself and not every group has the same representation amongst the people who write history (not just history books but representation in the media, politics, education, etc.)

Probably historical reasons e.g. the Nuremberg trials, the Eichmann and Auschwitz trials all concerned the Nazi genocide of European Jews. There wasn't much awareness of Roma and Sinti victims in the English-speaking world until maybe the 1980s. I think there isn't much awareness about Roma and Sinti people in Britain in general. And also educational campaigns and popular media have long focused on Jewish victims of the Holocaust (understandably, because of the sheer numbers of Jewish victims). People also rarely discuss the 5 million+ Slavic people who were murdered by the Nazis.

In the UK we don't hear much about the victims of Japanese war crimes either and they numbered among the millions.

It is taught in schools but the community itself does not engage significantly with formal education and so has not participated in setting up museums, visiting schools etc. There are obviously going to be individual exceptions to this.
The communities that have the most recognition have done the most work to be recognized. Maybe this is an area that this community would like to raise more awareness of in the education sector?