Abstract:
In recent years, there has been a boom in scholarship on Romani memory of the Nazi genocide. Approaches range from collective amnesia to the impact of the Holocaust on contemporary European Roma identities and the role of Romani Holocaust memory in nation-building processes. However, few studies have attempted to analyze the memories of ordinary Roma as a source of their suffering and survival under Nazi occupation. In what follows, I aim to show how family memories of Roma, coupled with local archival evidence and ethnographic data, can shed light on the plight of Roma in the occupied territories. In doing so, I argue for the inclusion of the Romani experience in the broader field of Holocaust studies, as well as in the history of their micro-regions.

Volha Bartash (University of Regensburg)

Martin Fotta (Czech Academy of Sciences)