Introduction

This volume stems from a conference organized by the Stephen Roth Institute in December 2002 at Tel Aviv University and was the first international conference held in Israel on the Roma. Participants held in-depth discussions on various aspects relating to the history and current situation of the Roma in Europe. Prior to the conference, the editors of this volume, with the support of the German foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future, initiated a visit to Israel by a group of ten Ro..

Foreword

The genocide of the Roma (Gypsies) at the hands of Nazi Germany and some of its allies, known in Romani as the Porrajmos (catastrophe, very much parallel to the Hebrew term Shoah), has still not been properly and exhaustively researched. Indeed, some historians even deny that it was a genocide. However, if one takes seriously the definition of genocide in the 1948 Convention on the Crime of Genocide, there should be little doubt on that point. The definition speaks of an intent to destroy an ..

The Politics of Memory Jews and Roma Commemorate Their Persecution

INTRODUCTION In The Ethnic Origins of Nations the British historian and sociologist Anthony Smith, a leading theoretician of nationalism, defines ethnic community as “a named human population possessing a myth of common descent, common historical memories, elements of shared culture, an association with particular territory and sense of solidarity.” Although Smith accepts the claim espoused by ‘modernist’ theoreticians of nationalism, such as Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson, that nationa..

The Roma: a Minority in Europe

The main issues arising from the encounter between Roma people and surrounding European society since the time of their arrival in Medieval Europe until today are discussed in this work. The history of their persecution and genocide during the Nazi era, in particular, is central to the present volume. Significantly, some authors sought to emphasize the continuing history of prejudice and persecution, which reached a peak during the Nazi era and persisted after the war. Current questions of so..

Acknowledgments

Throughout the planning and editing of this volume we were fortunate in having the help and counsel of our colleagues from the Stephen Roth Institute, Tel Aviv University. Prof. Dina Porat, head of the Institute, supported the project from the outset and we are indebted to her for her advice and encouragement. Beryl Belsky, assisted by Yocheved Welber, did an excellent job of preparing the book and bringing it to publication. We wish to express our gratitude to the Friedrich Naumann Foundatio..

List of contributors

VIOREL ACHIM is a Senior Researcher at the Nicolae Iorga Institute of History, Bucharest, Romania. His research interests include political and confessional history of southeast Europe in the 13th–15th centuries, ethnic minorities in Romania in the 1930s and 1940s, population policy in Romania during World War II, and history of the Gypsies (Roma) in southeast Europe. He edited (and provided an introductory study to) Documente privind deportarea ţiganilor în Transnistria (Documents Concerning..

The Roma: a Minority in Europe

The main issues arising from the encounter between Roma people and surrounding European society since the time of their arrival in Medieval Europe until today are discussed in this work. The history of their persecution and genocide during the Nazi era, in particular, is central to the present volume. Significantly, some authors sought to emphasize the continuing history of prejudice and persecution, which reached a peak during the Nazi era and persisted after the war. Current questions of social integration in Europe, as well as that of ethnic definition and the construction of ethnic-national identity constitute another principal pillar of the book. The complexity of issues involved, such as collective memory, myth-making and social constructionism, trigger intense debate among researchers dealing with Romani studies. This volume is the result of an international conference held at Tel Aviv University in December 2002. The conference, one of the largest held among the academic community in the last decade, served as a unique forum for a multidisciplinary discussion on the past and present of the Roma in which both Roma and non-Roma scholars from various countries engaged

The Roma: a Minority in Europe

The main issues arising from the encounter between Roma people and surrounding European society since the time of their arrival in Medieval Europe until today are discussed in this work. The history of their persecution and genocide during the Nazi era, in particular, is central to the present volume. Significantly, some authors sought to emphasize the continuing history of prejudice and persecution, which reached a peak during the Nazi era and persisted after the war. Current questions of social integration in Europe, as well as that of ethnic definition and the construction of ethnic-national identity constitute another principal pillar of the book. The complexity of issues involved, such as collective memory, myth-making and social constructionism, trigger intense debate among researchers dealing with Romani studies. This volume is the result of an international conference held at Tel Aviv University in December 2002. The conference, one of the largest held among the academic community in the last decade, served as a unique forum for a multidisciplinary discussion on the past and present of the Roma in which both Roma and non-Roma scholars from various countries engaged