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Home > Romani Studies > The Roma Struggle for Compensation in Post-War Germany
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The Roma Struggle for Compensation in Post-War Germany

Author: Julia von dem Knesebeck

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"

“The first-rate research adds to the prestige of the University of Hertfordshire’s ongoing series on the Roma during the Holocaust. We need similar works on the Roma throughout German-occupied Europe.”


Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Ebook formats

About the book

Thirty years passed before it was accepted, in West Germany and elsewhere, that the Roma (Germany's Gypsies) had been Holocaust victims. And, similarly, it took thirty years for the West German state to admit that the sterilisation of Roma had been part of the 'Final Solution'.

Drawing on a substantial body of previously unseen sources, this book examines the history of the struggle of Roma for recognition as racially persecuted victims of National Socialism in post-war Germany.

Since modern academics belatedly began to take an interest in them, the Roma have been described as 'forgotten victims'.

This book looks at the period in West Germany between the end of the War and the beginning of the Roma civil rights movement in the early 1980s, during which the Roma were largely passed over when it came to compensation. The complex reasons for this are at the heart of this book.

  • More about the book

    In looking at how the West German compensation process for victims of racial, religious and political persecution affected Roma, Dr von dem Knesebeck shows not only how the Roma were treated but also how they themselves perceived the process.

    The case of the Roma reveals how the West German administrative and legal apparatus defined and classified National Socialist injustice, and in particular where pejorative attitudes were allowed to continue unchallenged.

    The main obstacle for Roma seeking compensation was the question, unresolved for many years, of whether National Socialist policies against Roma had been racially motivated as opposed to having been mere policing measures.

    The National Socialists' view that Roma were essentially 'asocial', 'workshy' and criminal was shared by many Germans after the war, including some of those responsible for compensation.

    Rather than following a simple linear progression from refusal to recognition, the struggle for compensation went through several distinct stages.

    Paradoxically, success in claiming compensation was built largely on the Roma's claim to be an ethnic minority. The Roma had to prove that they were a 'race' which had been subjected to National Socialist persecution, in spite of their invariably depicting themselves as German in autobiographic material.

    The author presents, for the first time, a full account of the changing perception of the persecution of the Roma, and of the means by which compensation was eventually achieved.

  • View the table of contents

    Contents


     Prefaceix
     Acknowledgementsxiii
     Abbreviations and Recurring German Termsxv
     Glossaryxix
     Introduction1
    1The Nature of Persecution23
    2Victims' Stories51
    3The Early Post-War Years (1945–1953)73
    4The Machinery of Compensation99
    5How to Measure Disability133
    6The Struggle for Recognition161
    7Property Claims195
     Conclusion221
     Epilogue227
     Bibliography241
     Index261

  • About the Author/s:

    Julia von dem Knesebeck

    Julia von dem Knesebeck read History at Cambridge University and gained her D.Phil at Oxford University.

    Whilst at Oxford, she received a scholarship from the Alfred Toepfer Foundation in Germany and was a research fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies (part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).

ISBN: 978-1-907396-11-3 Format: Ebook, 288pp Published: Jun 2011

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