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The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies
Roaming the countryside in caravans, earning their living as musicians, peddlers, and fortune-tellers, the Gypsies and their elusive way of life represented an affront to Nazi ideas of social order, hard work, and racial purity. They were branded as "asocials," harassed, and eventually herded into concentration camps where many thousands were killed. But until now the story of their persecution has either been overlooked or distorted.
In The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies , Guenter Lewy draws upon thousands of documents--many never before used--from German and Austrian archives to provide the most comprehensive and accurate study available of the fate of the Gypsies under the Nazi regime. Lewy traces the escalating vilification of the Gypsies as the Nazis instigated a widespread crackdown on the "work-shy" and "itinerants." But he shows that Nazi policy towards Gypsies was confused and changeable. At first, local officials persecuted gypsies, and those who behaved in gypsy-like fashion, for allegedly anti-social tendencies. Later, with the rise of race obsession, Gypsies were seen as a threat to German racial purity, though Himmler himself wavered, trying to save those he considered "pure Gypsies" descended from Aryan roots in India. Indeed, Lewy contradicts much existing scholarship in showing that, however much the Gypsies were persecuted, there was no general program of extermination analogous to the "final
solution" for the Jews.
Exploring in heart-rending detail the fates of individual Gypsies and their families, The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies makes an important addition to our understanding both of the history of this mysterious people and of all facets of the Nazi terror.
In The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies , Guenter Lewy draws upon thousands of documents--many never before used--from German and Austrian archives to provide the most comprehensive and accurate study available of the fate of the Gypsies under the Nazi regime. Lewy traces the escalating vilification of the Gypsies as the Nazis instigated a widespread crackdown on the "work-shy" and "itinerants." But he shows that Nazi policy towards Gypsies was confused and changeable. At first, local officials persecuted gypsies, and those who behaved in gypsy-like fashion, for allegedly anti-social tendencies. Later, with the rise of race obsession, Gypsies were seen as a threat to German racial purity, though Himmler himself wavered, trying to save those he considered "pure Gypsies" descended from Aryan roots in India. Indeed, Lewy contradicts much existing scholarship in showing that, however much the Gypsies were persecuted, there was no general program of extermination analogous to the "final
solution" for the Jews.
Exploring in heart-rending detail the fates of individual Gypsies and their families, The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies makes an important addition to our understanding both of the history of this mysterious people and of all facets of the Nazi terror.
320 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 1990
9 people are currently reading
130 people want to read
About the author
Guenter Lewy
30 books10 followersGuenter Lewy is a German-born American author and political scientist who is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His works span several topics, but he is most often associated with his 1978 book on the Vietnam War, America in Vietnam, and several controversial works that deal with the applicability of the term genocide to various historical events, where Lewy denies both the Romani genocide and the Armenian genocide.
In 1939 he migrated from Germany to Palestine. After World War II, he migrated to the United States to reunite with his parents. Lewy earned a BA at City College in New York City and a MA and PhD at Columbia University. He has been on the faculties of Columbia University, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He currently lives in Washington, D.C., and was a frequent contributor to Commentary.
In 1939 he migrated from Germany to Palestine. After World War II, he migrated to the United States to reunite with his parents. Lewy earned a BA at City College in New York City and a MA and PhD at Columbia University. He has been on the faculties of Columbia University, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He currently lives in Washington, D.C., and was a frequent contributor to Commentary.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 10, 2022
this book does a good job providing historical examples of the *Romani* peoples persecution in Europe however it is not at all a book I would recommend for those trying to learn about the Romani peoples experience in the Holocaust, or what Romani people call it, the “Porajmos”, meaning the great devouring. Lewy denies that what the Roma people experienced was a genocide. His claims are highly offensive and feed into the erasure of Roma people’s experience in the Holocaust. Its estimated that upwards to 90% of Europes Roma was murdered. Even if less Roma were documented to have been killed that does not mean that a devastatingly large number of their people were exterminated for being non-white. In addition to this, many Roma at the time did not have formal documentation of their birth, identity, or citizenship- it is inappropriate to ignore that fact and say that what they faced was not a genocide. Also, he refers to Romani people as gypsies, which is a racial slur that has very negative connotations with it. Please read books written by Romani authors. Read studies conducted by Romani scholars. The Documentaries “A People Uncounted” and another one thats on Youtube posted by DW news and made by Adrian Oeser is “Germany's Sinti and Roma: A history of discrimination | DW Documentary”. Romani people and historians are in both of those documentaries and they tell their own stories as they know them and as they themselves experienced them. The erasure of Roma from the conversations regarding the Holocaust is extremely problematic, and it was because of that that Roma Holocaust survivors largely still haven’t received compensation/reparations, & if they have it was a one time payment of a small sum of money, & is why the Roma people didn’t get formal recognition of experiencing a genocide until the 1980’s. The erasure of their genocide erases the context for why so many Roma people today live in poverty and on the outskirts of cities. There hasnt been a proper reckoning by society to see that Romani people live in RACIALIZED POVERTY. Racialized poverty is poverty that one lives in due to their race. Since Roma are seen as inherently criminals, vagrants, & nomads they are denied jobs and housing, further compounding the poverty they experience. To blame Roma for being targeted in the Holocaust is abhorrent & supports eugenicists beliefs of the theory of of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, which is the foundation for degeneracy theory, which Ruth C Engs defined in the book “The Eugenics Movement” as the belief, “ n which acquired negative characteristics, such as poverty and alcoholism, were thought to be passed to offspring,”(xiv).
DO NOT READ THIS to educate yourself on the genocide of Roma in the Holocaust, it promotes the idea that Romani people didn’t experience a genocide.
This book promotes erasure of Roma people’s experiences in the Holocaust and the large-scale devastation it brought upon the Roma in the Porajmos.
DO NOT READ THIS to educate yourself on the genocide of Roma in the Holocaust, it promotes the idea that Romani people didn’t experience a genocide.
This book promotes erasure of Roma people’s experiences in the Holocaust and the large-scale devastation it brought upon the Roma in the Porajmos.
May 29, 2019
This is the sort of book that requires a fair amount of moral courage to write. For one, the book seeks to discuss and openly acknowledge the Nazi persecution of the gypsy people of Germany as well as Nazi-occupied Europe, itself a somewhat obscure and often neglected task. For another, though, the book avoids the easy comparison between the treatment of the Jews and Gypsies, and engages the complexity both of prejudice within Germany (and the Nazi Party) against Gypsies and the fact that unlike with the Jews, there was no coherent final solution to the Gypsies that imagined their complete destruction from the earth, even if Nazi policies of concerning vagabondage and racial mixing and the way that imprisoned Gypsies were viewed (not without reason) as highly prone to typhus meant that many Gypsies ended up being killed in an incoherent way. The author also demonstrates the various ways that Gypsies were viewed in a fragmentary fashion, not exactly a highly desired minority, but neither as an existential threat to the well-being of the Nazi regime. There were, in other words, both similarities and differences in the treatment of Jews and Gypsies under Nazi rule, and the author does a good job at untangling them for the reader.
This book of a bit more than 200 pages is divided into four parts and fourteen chapters. The author begins with a preface and a discussion of the history of oppression and maltreatment faced by the Gypsies in Germany and other places before World War II. After that the author looks at the three-track policy of German behavior towards the Gypsies in the period before the beginning of World War II (I), the increase of harassment (1), efforts at crime prevention that targeted Gypsies (2), and the view that Germans were confronting an alien race (3), along with the special case of Austrian Gypsies who were concentrated in backwards Bergenland (4). After that the author looks at the tightened net faced by Gypsies in the beginning of World War II (II), with security measures and expulsions in some areas (5), the creation of the Gypsies as a particular sort of social outcast (6), detention and deportation from Austria (7), and the killing of "spies" and hostages in German-occupied Eastern Europe (8). The author turns his attention to the attempts to destroy the community of European/German Gypsies (III) in looking at deportation to Auschwitz (9), life and death in the family camp there (10), gypsies in other concentration camps (11), and those gypsies who were exempt from deportation efforts (12). The author then closes with a discussion of German gypsies after the disaster (IV) looking at survivors and perpetrators (13), the course of persecution assessed (14), as well as abbreviations and a glossary, notes, a bibliography, and an index.
In recognizing the reality of the Nazi persecution of the Gypsies, it is important both to recognize the reality of the suffering of the Gypsies without engaging in any false equivalences between the treatment of Gypsies and that of the Jews, even if there were some similarities in that both were considered to be undesirable populations whose right to life was not something that the Nazis were going to in any way guarantee. Gypsies were viewed as more dangerous with mixing, and settled, "pure" Gypsies were viewed with some degree of protective instincts on the part of some Nazis not unlike the way that Schindler was protective towards "his" Jews. Admittedly, this is a rather complicated viewpoint that does not make for easy solutions, but the author is willing to discuss the complexity of Nazi treatment of the Gypsies, which was pretty horrifying even if it does not quite qualify as the exact level of genocidal hatred that the Germans felt towards Jews. It takes a special kind of bravery to take on writing about such a subject in such an honest and thoughtful fashion as the author does.
This book of a bit more than 200 pages is divided into four parts and fourteen chapters. The author begins with a preface and a discussion of the history of oppression and maltreatment faced by the Gypsies in Germany and other places before World War II. After that the author looks at the three-track policy of German behavior towards the Gypsies in the period before the beginning of World War II (I), the increase of harassment (1), efforts at crime prevention that targeted Gypsies (2), and the view that Germans were confronting an alien race (3), along with the special case of Austrian Gypsies who were concentrated in backwards Bergenland (4). After that the author looks at the tightened net faced by Gypsies in the beginning of World War II (II), with security measures and expulsions in some areas (5), the creation of the Gypsies as a particular sort of social outcast (6), detention and deportation from Austria (7), and the killing of "spies" and hostages in German-occupied Eastern Europe (8). The author turns his attention to the attempts to destroy the community of European/German Gypsies (III) in looking at deportation to Auschwitz (9), life and death in the family camp there (10), gypsies in other concentration camps (11), and those gypsies who were exempt from deportation efforts (12). The author then closes with a discussion of German gypsies after the disaster (IV) looking at survivors and perpetrators (13), the course of persecution assessed (14), as well as abbreviations and a glossary, notes, a bibliography, and an index.
In recognizing the reality of the Nazi persecution of the Gypsies, it is important both to recognize the reality of the suffering of the Gypsies without engaging in any false equivalences between the treatment of Gypsies and that of the Jews, even if there were some similarities in that both were considered to be undesirable populations whose right to life was not something that the Nazis were going to in any way guarantee. Gypsies were viewed as more dangerous with mixing, and settled, "pure" Gypsies were viewed with some degree of protective instincts on the part of some Nazis not unlike the way that Schindler was protective towards "his" Jews. Admittedly, this is a rather complicated viewpoint that does not make for easy solutions, but the author is willing to discuss the complexity of Nazi treatment of the Gypsies, which was pretty horrifying even if it does not quite qualify as the exact level of genocidal hatred that the Germans felt towards Jews. It takes a special kind of bravery to take on writing about such a subject in such an honest and thoughtful fashion as the author does.
January 22, 2016
The Holocaust is normally the first thing to come to mind when thinking about the Nazi party, while this is a main point taught in modern day schools, there is another minority that is not mentioned as often. They are the Gypsies. They were thought of as spies due to their dark complexion and abnormalities compared to the Caucasian people commonly found in Germany. Since they were different, the Gypsies were treated as social outcasts starting with the day they entered the country. This started by segregating the Gypsies from the Nazis and eventually moving the Gypsies to concentration camps. The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies introduces and elaborates on the treatment of the unwelcomed Gypsies.
This was an interesting book to read. While reading it, the content seemed valid, but with further research it appears that the book is one sided. Guenter Lewy takes the side of the Nazi people and chooses to show that the Romani (Gypsy) nation was terminated due to their own wrongdoing.
If you are looking for a book based in World War 2 with a Nazi perspective of the treatment of the Romani nation, this would be a good option. Otherwise, if you only want unbiased information on the persecution of the Romani’s then I would not suggest this book. Rather, a book with primary sources with Romani historians would be a better option.
This was an interesting book to read. While reading it, the content seemed valid, but with further research it appears that the book is one sided. Guenter Lewy takes the side of the Nazi people and chooses to show that the Romani (Gypsy) nation was terminated due to their own wrongdoing.
If you are looking for a book based in World War 2 with a Nazi perspective of the treatment of the Romani nation, this would be a good option. Otherwise, if you only want unbiased information on the persecution of the Romani’s then I would not suggest this book. Rather, a book with primary sources with Romani historians would be a better option.
September 6, 2016
Absolutely horrifying. The depravity of the Nazi extermination campaigns is just unbelievable—like I really just don't understand and cannot believe these things actually happened even though they very much did. The perspective of the Gypsy persecution by the Third Reich was some enlightening historical information, and seeing as this is one of only two books ever written on this topic, it should be recommended reading.
February 12, 2023
This book compares Nazi mistreatment of the Jews to Nazi mistreatment of Gypsies (as Lewy calls them; this is not the most common term today). Since this is the first thing I have read about the topic, I can't really evaluate the most controversial parts of the book. However, I can describe Lewy's positions.
His key points seem to be that 1) Nazi oppression towards this group was more bottom-up than top-down because public hostility was so widespread; 2) Nazis were more murderous outside German borders than inside Germany; 3) Himmler's idiosyncratic racial views meant that the members of this group who he believed were "racially pure" were actually safer in Germany than Germans of mixed race; and 4) Nazis did not seek the level of universal annihilation that they sought against Jews, although the level of disease and starvation in concentration camps nevertheless ensured widespread levels of death.
His key points seem to be that 1) Nazi oppression towards this group was more bottom-up than top-down because public hostility was so widespread; 2) Nazis were more murderous outside German borders than inside Germany; 3) Himmler's idiosyncratic racial views meant that the members of this group who he believed were "racially pure" were actually safer in Germany than Germans of mixed race; and 4) Nazis did not seek the level of universal annihilation that they sought against Jews, although the level of disease and starvation in concentration camps nevertheless ensured widespread levels of death.
November 20, 2024
very good
January 20, 2015
The Gypsy Holocaust: Review of The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies by Guenter Lewy
The Gypsies also experienced a Holocaust at the hands of the Nazi regime. Initially, Nazi racial ideology expressed some ambivalence towards the Gypsies, by way of contrast to the Jews, whom they perceived as “vermin”. On the one hand, the Nazis regarded the Gypsies as “work-shy”, nomadic beggars and thieves, racially inferior to the Aryan race. On the other hand, some Nazi racial theories traced “racially pure” Gypsies to “Aryan” Indian tribes. In the end, this dual perspective on the Gypsies didn’t alter their mistreatment. Although the Nazis didn’t have a comparable “Final Solution”, or systematic plan to exterminate the Gypsies the way the did the Jews, the Gypsies suffered a similar fate. Like the Jews, they were rounded up for slave labor, interred in ghettoized areas (Gypsy Camps), and subsequently sent to killing centers.
Guenter Lewy’s closely researched book, The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), traces the oppression of the Gypsies in Germany and Nazi controlled territories, starting with the racial laws of the early 1930’s, to their deportation to concentration camps beginning in 1940, to their eventual extermination in Auschwitz in May 1944.
When the Nazis consolidated power in 1936, Heinrich Himmler, who became the SS Chief and the Chief of German police, instituted the Reich Central Office for the Suppression of the Gypsies Nuisance. This organization took progressive steps to contain and persecute the Gypsies. As early as 1938, Lewy recounts, the Gypsies were rounded up and confined to Gypsy camps (Zigeunerlager). Many men were also forced into slave labor, under the program “Operation Work-Shy”. Himmler took charge of this step-by-step process of isolation and discrimination, in a characteristically systematic—and insidious--fashion. In a decree entitled “Combatting the Gypsy Plague,” he set out to determine the “inner characteristics of that race” (36). Dr. Robert Ritter, a Nazi child psychologist, became the head of The Research Institute for Racial Hygiene and Population Biology. He classified the Gypsies according to their racial profile, as pure-bred or mixed. (43) Ironically, Gypsies of “pure blood” received some special consideration and were deemed to be more integrated into German society. By way of contrast, “mixed blood” Gypsies were declared “racially inferior” and subjected to far worse treatment: in a kind of inversion of the racial laws applied to the Jews.
Only a small number of Gypsies benefitted from the racial exemptions applicable to “pure Gypsies”: somewhere between 5,000 to 15,000 individuals. The rest—about 90 percent of the Gypsies—were considered by Ritter’s pseudoscientific classification as being of “mixed” or “degenerate” blood. The vast majority of them were rounded up and deported from all the Reich and Nazi-occupied territories. In 1938, Gypsy men from Marzahn were sent to Sachsanhausen. However, large-scale, mass deportations of the Gypsies to the East began in 1940. By 1942, Himmler ordered that all the Gypsies (Roma people) in the Reich be deported to concentration and extermination camps. (75)
At Auschwitz, Gypsies were some of the few inmates, along with a group of Czech inmates from the Theresienstadt concentration camp (known as “the Family Camp”), who were allowed to keep their clothes, not shave their hair off, and stay together in clans that comprised men, women and children. Despite this somewhat better treatment, their conditions were miserable. They lacked sufficient food, lived in squalor and were plagued by lice and disease. The children often suffered from noma, a disease stemming from malnutrition that caused a form of gangrene on their faces, which often looked like holes in their cheeks. The notorious Josef Mengele also enjoyed experimenting on Gypsy children, particularly on twins, his specialty.
Lewy doesn’t call the Nazi persecution of the Gypsies a “Holocaust” because it was, in some respects, less systematic than the genocide of the Jews. Gypsies were not explicitly selected for total extermination, as were the Jewish people. This distinction makes sense. However, in the end, the result was the same, since approximately 250,000 Gypsies were killed by the Nazi regime.
Claudia Moscovici,
Holocaust Memory
The Gypsies also experienced a Holocaust at the hands of the Nazi regime. Initially, Nazi racial ideology expressed some ambivalence towards the Gypsies, by way of contrast to the Jews, whom they perceived as “vermin”. On the one hand, the Nazis regarded the Gypsies as “work-shy”, nomadic beggars and thieves, racially inferior to the Aryan race. On the other hand, some Nazi racial theories traced “racially pure” Gypsies to “Aryan” Indian tribes. In the end, this dual perspective on the Gypsies didn’t alter their mistreatment. Although the Nazis didn’t have a comparable “Final Solution”, or systematic plan to exterminate the Gypsies the way the did the Jews, the Gypsies suffered a similar fate. Like the Jews, they were rounded up for slave labor, interred in ghettoized areas (Gypsy Camps), and subsequently sent to killing centers.
Guenter Lewy’s closely researched book, The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), traces the oppression of the Gypsies in Germany and Nazi controlled territories, starting with the racial laws of the early 1930’s, to their deportation to concentration camps beginning in 1940, to their eventual extermination in Auschwitz in May 1944.
When the Nazis consolidated power in 1936, Heinrich Himmler, who became the SS Chief and the Chief of German police, instituted the Reich Central Office for the Suppression of the Gypsies Nuisance. This organization took progressive steps to contain and persecute the Gypsies. As early as 1938, Lewy recounts, the Gypsies were rounded up and confined to Gypsy camps (Zigeunerlager). Many men were also forced into slave labor, under the program “Operation Work-Shy”. Himmler took charge of this step-by-step process of isolation and discrimination, in a characteristically systematic—and insidious--fashion. In a decree entitled “Combatting the Gypsy Plague,” he set out to determine the “inner characteristics of that race” (36). Dr. Robert Ritter, a Nazi child psychologist, became the head of The Research Institute for Racial Hygiene and Population Biology. He classified the Gypsies according to their racial profile, as pure-bred or mixed. (43) Ironically, Gypsies of “pure blood” received some special consideration and were deemed to be more integrated into German society. By way of contrast, “mixed blood” Gypsies were declared “racially inferior” and subjected to far worse treatment: in a kind of inversion of the racial laws applied to the Jews.
Only a small number of Gypsies benefitted from the racial exemptions applicable to “pure Gypsies”: somewhere between 5,000 to 15,000 individuals. The rest—about 90 percent of the Gypsies—were considered by Ritter’s pseudoscientific classification as being of “mixed” or “degenerate” blood. The vast majority of them were rounded up and deported from all the Reich and Nazi-occupied territories. In 1938, Gypsy men from Marzahn were sent to Sachsanhausen. However, large-scale, mass deportations of the Gypsies to the East began in 1940. By 1942, Himmler ordered that all the Gypsies (Roma people) in the Reich be deported to concentration and extermination camps. (75)
At Auschwitz, Gypsies were some of the few inmates, along with a group of Czech inmates from the Theresienstadt concentration camp (known as “the Family Camp”), who were allowed to keep their clothes, not shave their hair off, and stay together in clans that comprised men, women and children. Despite this somewhat better treatment, their conditions were miserable. They lacked sufficient food, lived in squalor and were plagued by lice and disease. The children often suffered from noma, a disease stemming from malnutrition that caused a form of gangrene on their faces, which often looked like holes in their cheeks. The notorious Josef Mengele also enjoyed experimenting on Gypsy children, particularly on twins, his specialty.
Lewy doesn’t call the Nazi persecution of the Gypsies a “Holocaust” because it was, in some respects, less systematic than the genocide of the Jews. Gypsies were not explicitly selected for total extermination, as were the Jewish people. This distinction makes sense. However, in the end, the result was the same, since approximately 250,000 Gypsies were killed by the Nazi regime.
Claudia Moscovici,
Holocaust Memory
October 30, 2010
My knowledge of the persecution of the Roma/Sinti people during the Holocaust was minimal, at best. Reading Lewy's book, The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies, certainly added to my knowledge base; however, I am sure of all of the information provided by the author. In speaking to historians and scholars (I am an avid attendee of workshops provided by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center) their opinions and research has contradicted Lewy's. Nonetheless, I feel I have gained valuable knowledge about the Roma/Sinti people. I will continue to pursue the available resources on the persecution of the gypsies.
June 14, 2010
Introduction is the best I have seen in one place for information on Roma/Sinti in any one place. This book is quality research . . . but I still don't want to agree with his conclusions about the intent of the Nazis vis a vis the Roma (did I really use that in a sentence?). Contends that the Roma were not targeted for extermination by the Nazis, but were sent to work or concentration camps in response to pressure from locals. And even when sent to Auschwitz, the Roma were treated better than the Jews.
August 20, 2015
I don't like rating historical books, because it's history and there is little we can do to change it. However, it's a good book, full of facts and such about the gypsies and Germany. It helps to read this material because it shows us how easy it is for us to hate and how difficult it is to love when we feel our territory is being encroached on. Both views are clearly presented; unfortunately for the gypsies they are treated inhumanly and end up in concentration camps and for many death. I would definitely recommend this books to friends and family members.
July 30, 2011
Morbid - but that is to be expected when dealing with this horrific period of history. The writing was dry, but informative. I had to read this slowly, in small batches, due to the nature of the content.
July 24, 2008
It's not one of my favorite books on the subject (if you can have a fav) and he shows his bias a little too much for my taste, but despite that it has a lot of information to offer.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews