Separate Suffering, Shared Archives: Jewish and Romani Histories of Nazi Persecution

Abstract

Bridging Holocaust history and memory studies, this article explores the multiple and asymmetrical entanglements of Jewish and Romani (or “Gypsy”) accounts of Nazi genocide. These entanglements exist in large part due to the fact that testimonies of the Romani Holocaust are commonly filtered through the lens of Jewish survivors or stored in archives dedicated to the Jewish Holocaust. Modern Jewish-Romani relations thus represent a rare—and arguably unique—case in which one minority controls such a significant portion of the public memories of another.