The untold history of a forgotten people lies under garbage dumps and in unmarked fields behind remote villages across Eastern Europe.
The mass graves of the Roma Gypsies dot the remote countryside alongside those of hundreds of thousands of fallen Jews, a neglected reminder of the Holocaust.
Father Patrick Desbois, secretary to a French conference for bishops about relations with Judaism, shed light on this grisly tale last night at NYU’s La Maison Francaise with a lecture, followed by a question-and-answer session and short documentary on his work to construct a microhistory of the mass murders of the Roma, featuring interviews with Roma people.
Antonin Baudry, cultural counselor for the French embassy in the United States, introduced Desbois. He stressed the importance of the largely forsaken history.
“The mass murder of the Roma people is one of the most neglected stories of the Holocaust,” Baudry said.
Desbois has devoted his career to reconstructing this history. He said the Roma are one of the largest groups of forgotten victims of the Holocaust.
“Most of the history has not been written, anywhere,” Desbois said. “With most genocides we only remember the name of the killer, like they are a hero.”
Desbois’ aim is to take the focus off the killers and give the Roma their own microhistory.
“If we don’t establish clearly the story of their genocide, how can we advocate for their dignity today?” Desbois asked.
Desbois and his crew of French and Roma contributors located roughly 2,000 mass graves and about 800 execution sites in Eastern Europe. Of all the sites they found, only one site in Ukraine was marked by a memorial.
The team also interviewed over 2,500 elderly Roma eyewitnesses in their native language of Romani.
Today the Roma are fighting hard for representation in the larger story of the Holocaust. There are no Romas on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.
Ellen Count, a crime writer who attended the event, was shocked to hear that the Roma are rarely represented in major Holocaust memorial events.
“It’s devastating,” Count said. “I don’t know how they justify that.”
A version of this article appeared in the Thursday, April 4 print edition. Kevin Burns is a deputy university editor. Email him at [email protected].
Matt McLaughlin • Apr 26, 2013 at 11:14 am
How many Americans even know of the two million people deported from eastern Poland, the Baltic States, and Romania in 1939 and 1940 to die in the Gulag, the seven million Soviet citizens killed in the camps during World War II, the million POWs (including Finns and Poles) killed by the Soviets during World War II, or the million members of minority nationalities, such as the Volga Germans or Crimean Tatars, who perished in the Gulag during the war, not to mention the five to six million who died there following World War II, including those repatriated (sometimes with British and American help) from territory that had been occupied by the Nazis? How many Americans realize that Mao-Tse Tung—who came to power only because Stalin survived World War II—was the greatest tyrant in history, responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese?
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Petra Gelbart • Apr 7, 2013 at 8:44 am
Gunther Lewy’s book is pseudohistory, nothing more. He selects only those documents that support his ridiculous, politically driven thesis. Unfortunately, this is also the most widely read English-language book on Roma and Sinti during the Holocaust. Meanwhile, the voices of trustworthy scholars, and of us, Romani representatives and members of victimized families, continue to be silenced. Interested persons can contact the Initiative for Romani Music at NYU for more information: http://romanimusic.net
William Lazarus Bila • Apr 7, 2013 at 6:58 am
Thank you, NYU for hosting this event! I am proud to be an alumnus! Please keep up the good work!
William Lazarus Bila • Apr 7, 2013 at 6:57 am
You Can write to the memorial de la Shoah in Paris and ask them to remove the book, you can write to the UN, and ask for a permanent representation of Roma as holocaust memorials, and you can sign a petition on Amnesty International’s web site which will be sent to the prime minister of France to stop the expulsions of Roma today http://www.amnesty.fr/AI-en-action/Discriminations/Discriminations/Actions/Il-est-temps-de-mettre-un-terme-aux-expulsions-forcees-en-6989
William Lazarus Bila • Apr 7, 2013 at 6:44 am
Yes, devastating,….that this is not taught in French schools!
shamful that the expulsion of Roma from France continues today, …..
Shameful that that the Memorial de le Shoah in Paris has on sale a book by Gunther Lewy, where he claims the Roma were killed not as genocide, but because of our asocial behaviour !
And shameful that the Roma in France do not stand united and protest together to fight this discrimination as well as the continued use of th livret de circulation which required them to register at the police every six months when no other French citizen must do the same
And shameful that every year we have to wage a campaign to fight for the right of the presence of Roma at the Unite Nations in New York at the annual Holocaust remembrance ceremonies!