The Suffering of the Roma in Serbia During the Holocaust
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Milovan Pisarri THE SUFFERING OF THE ROMA IN SERBIA DURING THE HOLOCAUST Milovan Pisarri The Suffering of the Roma in Serbia during the Holocaust Publisher: Forum for Applied History, Belgrade Editing: Rena Rädle Review: Dr. Olga ManojloviÊ Pintar Translation: Nataša DiniÊ Proof reading: Paul Murray Design: Ana Humljan Prepress: Dejan DimitrijeviÊ Cover design: Rena Rädle Printing: KIZ Centar, Belgrade 2014 Print run: 400 The project was supported by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Southeast Europe. Original title of the publication: Stradanje Roma u Srbiji za vreme Holokausta Cover illustration: Linocut by Arpad Balaž from the portfolio Jatagan Mala from 1934, dim. 29,5×37cm, Inv. No. 1283 from the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade. Courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade. The quotation on the book cover is taken from the testimony of Leposava IliÊ from Jatagan mala published in: Dragoljub AckoviÊ, Romi u Beogradu, Belgrade, 2009, pp. 250^251. About the author: Milovan Pisarri (1980) obtained his doctorate in history at the University of Venice. He deals with the suffering of civilians during the 20th century, the Holocaust and nationalism with a focus on the Balkans. Milovan Pisarri THE SUFFERING OF THE ROMA IN SERBIA DURING THE HOLOCAUST Belgrade, 2014 CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION 1 Structure of the paper, historical sources 13 II. GENOCIDE AGAINST THE ROMA IN EUROPE 17 Attack on the Soviet Union and genocide against the Roma 22 In collaborating countries: Italy, Romania, Independent State of Croatia 25 III. GENOCIDE AGAINST THE ROMA IN SERBIA 35 The April War and instatement of authority 35 Anti-Jewish and anti-Roma legislature 41 The communist uprising 52 Chetniks 55 Battle and situation in the summer of 1941; formation of “The Government of National Salvation” 57 German reinforcements 62 Jews and Roma: distinct categories for execution 66 The perpetrators 73 IV. GENOCIDE AGAINST THE ROMA IN BELGRADE 77 Instatement of German and quisling authorities 77 Anti-Roma legislative in Belgrade 85 First arrests of the Roma 94 Collecting the Roma from Belgrade and vicinity: genocide against the Roma 101 At the concentration camp Topovske šupe 110 Executions 116 Internment of women and children 120 Data collection, victims, perpetrators 130 V. GENOCIDE AGAINST THE ROMA IN OTHER SERBIAN CITIES: CONCISE OVERVIEW 143 Šabac 143 Kragujevac 147 Niš 149 Leskovac and other towns 152 VI. CONCLUSION 155 VII. ARCHIVAL MATERIALS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 165 I. INTRODUCTION In one of the fi rst substantial studies devoted to genocide against the Roma,1 journalist and writer Christian Bernadac presents testimonies of two female concentration camp survivors, because, as he says, Collecting certain stories and papers on deportation, I reached the conclusion that the Roma were avoided by all representatives of de- ported peoples, of which there were around thirty-two or thirty-five. As an illustration, it is sufficient to refer to some of the rare sentences mentioning the Roma in the survivors’ testimonies. “Gypsy women, dirty thieves, utter cowards, crybabies full of vermin...”, “A herd of bo- hemians, disgustingly dirty, obtuse, thieves...”, “One tall Gypsy, thief and liar: just like others of his race, all he needed was one cue by an SS member to become a killer...”.2 The author, in the paragraphs that follow, admits to having felt very disappointed when he noticed that even writers, university professors and priests from different countries share the same thoughts, quot- ing several of their statements from the post-war period. Also, it was frightening to discover that the massacre of Roma was being ignored. “How is it possible to forget all those victims, to delete them from memory?”, he asks himself and others.3 The answer is, of course, not simple, but nonetheless, it should be acknowledged that, from that moment onwards, especially in recent 1 Christian Bernadac, L’holocauste oublié: les massacre des tsiganes, Éditions France-Empire, Pasir, 1979. In the present text, the translation into Serbo-Croa- tian has been used: Zaboravljeni holokaust. Pokolj Cigana, (translated from French by Selma OruË), Globus, Zagreb, 1981 2 Ibid, p. 18 3 Ibid, p. 19 INTRODUCTION │ 1 years, numerous efforts have been made so as to wrest, at last, the gen- ocide against the Roma in World War II from the abyss of mass am- nesia. Essential papers pertaining to this matter which represent the fi rst signifi cant publication on the suffering of the Roma, appeared in Great Britain as long ago as 1972, entitled The destiny of Europe’s Gypsies,4 as well as the book Rassenutopie und Genozid. Die nationalso- zialistische „Lösung der Zigeunerfrage“5, considered by one of the most infl uential experts on the subject of Roma in World War II, Gilad Mar- galit, to be the most signifi cant work on genocide against the Roma.6 The text that lies before the reader should be interpreted in the spirit of a “battle against forgetting”. Writing about unfamiliar topics, opening up new research studies and asking new questions in historiography is always a diffi cult task. The historian who does not have literature at his/her disposal is compelled to pore over material kept in archives, without any specifi c indication as to where to direct one’s attention, where to seek written documents on the topic s/he is addressing or even whether or not such documents actual- ly exist. It’s a delicate task, especially when it comes to such a large and problematic issue as genocide against the Roma in World War II. Accessing archival resources without prior knowledge brings a risk that the endeavor might be too great, and results too small; especially bearing in mind that the rare mentions of suffering of the Roma in ex- isting scientifi c papers always underscore the lack of sources for suita- ble treatment of the topic. Nevertheless, hope for success and the moral obligation to invest the greatest extent of commitment in the work must ultimately lead to 4 Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon, The destiny of Europe’s Gypsies, Heinemann, London, 1972 5 Michael Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid. Die nationalsozialistische „Lösung der Zigeunerfrage“, Christians, Hamburg, 1996 6 Gilad Margalit, The uniquess of the Nazi persecution of the Gypsies, in Romani stud- ies, vol 10. no. 2/2000, p. 186. For an overview of the most important works on genocide against the Roma, see the bibliography at the end of the text. 2 │ THE SUFFERING OF THE ROMA IN SERBIA DURING THE HOLOCAUST certain answers to the myriad of questions the historian asks him/her- self before and during research. It is never possible to fi nd an answer for each question, but this is precisely where the complexity of histor- ical science lies; truth will never be found in documents alone, a topic will never be exhausted, it will never be possible to isolate one seg- ment of history and bind it within the limits of dogmatic statements. Topics are opened up, nurtured and developed, generating a life of their own and rousing interest among others, not only those within the scientifi c fi eld, but also within the fi elds of morality, politics and general understanding. Holocaust, Roma holocaust, Porajmos?; unlike other mass extermina- tions in the 20th century, what happened to the Roma in Europe during World War II has still not been defi ned distinctively with one specifi c term. This fact is suffi cient to illustrate the very vague picture that we have to today regarding the mass, systematic killing of the Roma. In order to single out the unique National Socialist terror against Jews from the general legal category of genocide, during the nineteen fi fties, the word Holocaust became more frequent. It was created by Elie Wiesel, a Jewish survivor. Shortly, however, the same term start- ed being coined by various scientists so as to defi ne the extermination of other groups by the Nazis. The expression Holocaust, thus, expand- ed to include mass killing of “the racially inferior” (Roma), political and ideological opponents (primarily communists), religious enemies (Jehovah’s Witnesses) and the undesirable (the disabled, homosexu- als). In the Serbian language, this term is written in lower case letters, while capitalization began recently so as to single out the Holocaust against Jews from holocaust against other groups. Due to existing risk from banalization of terror against Jews, in western countries (but not in the Anglo-Saxon world) the term Shoah is now being used more and more frequently. It was in mid nineteen-nineties that the extermination of the Roma was named for the fi rst time. The Roma linguist and activist Ian Han- cock introduced the word Porajmos (destruction) so as to signify the INTRODUCTION │ 3 National Socialist policy of extermination of the Roma and the Sinti in World War II. From then on, the term gained presence, not only in scientifi c, but also in political language, even though it cannot yet be considered fully accepted. Some people, for instance the anthropolo- gist Michael Stewart, decisively oppose the term because of the mean- ing it has among the Roma in Eastern Europe.7 In Serbia, the term Porajmos is not used at all, just mentioned occasionally. The fact that extermination of the Roma and the Sinti can be de- fi ned as genocide in the legal sense, but also as holocaust and ultimate- ly as Porajmos, has led, in the symbolic sense, to a situation whereby on the European and Global level there is still no unique manner of usage for these terms. This becomes evident not only in scientifi c pa- pers, but in the language of State and international institutions: for instance, in September 2012, European MPs proposed that an Inter- national Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Holocaust against the Roma be established, while at the International Holocaust Remem- brance Alliance (IHRA, former ITF) the expression “genocide against the Roma” is in use.