Forgotten holocaust of Sinti and Roma

wim · January 2020

One of the things that really stuck with me after reading Dregni's book was, considering as a percentage of their population, Gypsy communities were slaughtered even worse than the Jews in WW2. It's not something you hear about so much.

Interesting article that appeared online yesterday -

Makes you wonder what kind of things must have been in Django's head at the time

https://theconversation.com/nazis-murdered-a-quarter-of-europes-roma-but-history-still-overlooks-this-genocide-128706?fbclid=IwAR1nuqurRiKiW3Tgzj9CPr6xFvtqCne2oT9t5r_XabAg7_Q0Nc6GonBXaGU

geese_com · January 2020

Thanks for sharing. There was a great documentary series posted here last year that explored this and that gave me a better understanding of what happened. It is very tragic.

Stringswinger · January 2020

Wim, your math is way off. The Nazi's murdered 60% of Europe's Jews. The Gypsies were not hunted as ruthlessly as the Jews.

wim · January 2020

@Stringswinger That is not my math, the reference came from Romani scholar Ian Hancock. I remembered it written in Dregni's book that "the death toll of Romani proportionate to their population exceeded that of Jewish victims". Chapter 5, Page 79.

Stringswinger · January 2020

You (and Dregni) have quoted a single source. No other respected historian has made that claim. And I do not take the slaughter of the Gypsies lightly. The slaughter of the Gypsies is indeed often overlooked. And like the Jews, the slaughter of the Gypsies involved some gruesome atrocities (medical "experiments" and the like). But your post above makes an incorrect historic statement, unless one believe the holocaust deniers or Hancock's unsubstantiated claim.

The Germans and their collaborators killed six million Jews out of a population of about ten million European Jews (60%).

Half a Million Gypsies were killed out of a population of between one and two million European Gypsies (25-50%)

wim · January 2020

I'm not making any historical statement. I was only remarking on a section of the book that made me stop and think "whoah" for a moment, because that (Gypsies also targeted for extermination) was not something I'd been aware of before. An awful piece of history swept under the rug, perhaps. The population of Gypsies living in wartime Europe and the numbers killed, what with so many being nomadic and undocumented, must be uncertain to estimate - I don't know if the historian's claim is accurate, but Dregni seems diligent with sources.

Your argument on this point is bizarre, and a little insulting - it's not a competition. Writing about the horrors suffered by the Gypsies doesn't in any way diminish the horrors suffered by other groups, and certainly not equate one as a holocaust denier, so knock off the strawman.

Stringswinger · January 2020

Mr. Glenn, you are the one who diminished the holocaust in this thread. IMO, that makes you no better than a holocaust denier. If I have insulted you, too bad.

PapsPier · January 2020

Here is some reading. Relevant to discuss the situation in France, it is the one we are mainly concerned about when we talked about Django's state of mind during the WWII.

Not to diminish Michael Dregni impressive works (that I truly enjoy) but there are some information that are either slightly erroneous, or shortcuts of the truth for sake of clarity (and pieces of DJango's "legend" that have been just copied from other sources that we now know are not accurate)

http://www.memoires-tsiganes1939-1946.fr/deportations.html

MichaelHorowitz · January 2020

I think everyone here had good intentions but things got a little too heated and political. Ultimately it's impossible to get any truly accurate figures nor do I think those are neccessary to acknoledge the huge loss of life during the war. What's probably more important is that this community recognizes the plight of contemporary Sinti and Roma who still experience varying levels discrimination.

Anyway, in keeping with the music focus of this forum, this topic is now closed.