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The Nazi persecution of the gypsies / Guenter Lewy.

By: Lewy, Guenter, 1923-.
Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Oxford University Press, 2000Description: ix, 306 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.ISBN: 0195125568; 9780195125566.Subject(s): Romanies -- Nazi persecution | World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities | Romanies -- Germany -- History -- 20th centuryAdditional physical formats: Online version:: Nazi persecution of the gypsies.DDC classification: 940.53/18/08991497
Contents:
The prewar years: a three-track policy. Track 1: harassment stepped up ; Track 2: crime prevention ; Track 3: confronting an "alien race" ; The special case of the Austrian gypsies -- A tightened net (1939-1942). "Security measures" and expulsions ; Creating social outcasts ; Detention and deportation from the Ostmark (Austria) ; The killing of "spies" and hostages in German-occupied Europe -- A community destroyed (1943-1945). Deportation to Auschwitz ; Life and death in the gypsy family camp of Auschwitz ; Gypsies in other concentration camps ; Gypsies exempted from deportation -- After the disaster. Victims and perpetrators ; Conclusion: the course of persecution assessed.
Review: "In The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies, Guenter Lewy draws upon thousands of documents - many never before published - from German and Austrian archives to create the most comprehensive and accurate picture 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 antisocial tendencies. Later, with the rise of race obsession, Gypsies were seen as a threat to German racial purity, though Himmler himself wavered, trying to separate out and save those he considered "pure Gypsies" descended from Aryan roots in India. Indeed, Lewy challenges 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."--BOOK JACKET.
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Includes bibliographical references (p. [275]-296) and index.

The prewar years: a three-track policy. Track 1: harassment stepped up ; Track 2: crime prevention ; Track 3: confronting an "alien race" ; The special case of the Austrian gypsies -- A tightened net (1939-1942). "Security measures" and expulsions ; Creating social outcasts ; Detention and deportation from the Ostmark (Austria) ; The killing of "spies" and hostages in German-occupied Europe -- A community destroyed (1943-1945). Deportation to Auschwitz ; Life and death in the gypsy family camp of Auschwitz ; Gypsies in other concentration camps ; Gypsies exempted from deportation -- After the disaster. Victims and perpetrators ; Conclusion: the course of persecution assessed.

"In The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies, Guenter Lewy draws upon thousands of documents - many never before published - from German and Austrian archives to create the most comprehensive and accurate picture 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 antisocial tendencies. Later, with the rise of race obsession, Gypsies were seen as a threat to German racial purity, though Himmler himself wavered, trying to separate out and save those he considered "pure Gypsies" descended from Aryan roots in India. Indeed, Lewy challenges 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."--BOOK JACKET.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This book by Lewy (emeritus, political science, Univ. of Massachusetts) addresses an important need in the historiography of the Nazi era. His systematic study of the persecution of the Gypsies places their story in the context of German racial law. Since many Gypsies lived an indigent life and were often shunned as thieves, they were initially classified as "work shy" by the Nazis. As Nazi racial laws further defined "racial pollution," the Gypsies found themselves stigmatized as a foreign element potentially dangerous to the Aryan racial utopia. Of particular interest is Lewy's analysis of how some Gypsies managed to survive by being classified as "socially adjusted," meaning they had jobs and permanent residence, and therefore could avoid deportation (although not sterilization). Based on solid archival sources, this should become the standard work on the subject. Recommended for most public and academic libraries.--Frederic Krome, Jacob Rader Marcus Ctr. of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Lewy, author of the pathbreaking The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (CH, Dec'64), turns his attention to Nazi treatment of the Gypsies. Basing his work on three major German archival collections and confining his treatment to Germany, Austria, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Lewy tries to make sense of policies that were far from coherent. He identifies three tracks as this history emerged from grass roots, from state and regional authorities, and ultimately from Nazi ideologues in Berlin. Discrimination against Gypsy and Gypsy-like populations predated the rise of the Nazis. Measures to deal with the "Gypsy plague" met with wide public approval--a distinct difference between the persecution of the Roma and Sinti and that of the Jews. Authorities attempted racial definitions, but when it came to actual police harassment, sterilization, and mass murder, criteria such as an itinerant lifestyle and other evidences of "social maladjustment" proved more significant than "race." In fact, those of mixed parentage were considered more dangerous to the public welfare than those "of pure blood" and were treated more harshly. Without scanting the tragic dimensions of the story, Lewy succeeds in bringing clarity to a subject much neglected in English-language works. His study is meticulously researched and lucidly written. All levels. R. S. Levy; University of Illinois at Chicago

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Guenter Lewy is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the author of many books, including The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany and Religion and Revolution (OUP). He lives in Washington, D.C.

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