Rain of Ash

This remarkable book starts and ends with a Yiddish poem written by the acclaimed writer Abraham Sutzkever; it is referenced on the first and the last page of the text, runs like a leitmotif through the book, and defines the theme of Joskowicz’ extraordinary work of scholarship—the unequal relationship between the Jewish and Roma Holocausts during Hitler’s European tyranny. Sutzkever wrote his poem “to memorialize the Gypsy extermination” (87). In an introduction and six chronological chapters, the reader is taken from the Nazi killing sites to the archives that contain the most current documentation of crimes previously seen almost exclusively through a Jewish lens. However, there were two genocides, connected, with disparities of information and documentation. The European Roma community—Sinti, as they are called in Germany—received a fraction of the attention given to the murdered Jews.Chapter 1 describes the distinctive image of Jews and Roma in Hitler-ruled Germany and Europe before the outbreak of war in September 1939. To that point, there had been little contact or interaction, which came later, when they both faced systematic annihilation; even then, contact was limited. Before the German invasion of Poland, the remaining German Jewish population still was distinguishing itself by its social standing, education, and presumptive aura of respectability that it had enjoyed within pre-Hitler German society. With the Nazi rise to power in 1933, some left as soon as they could, others after Kristallnacht in November 1938, and the remaining several hundred thousand held out a fading hope that there would be a return to normalcy. However, all of German society viewed Gypsies, Sinti, Roma, Zigeuner—choose any descriptive word—as “work-shy” “idlers,” often thieving wanderers with little or no social status (55). There was scarcely any reason for interaction between these two groups destined for destruction. The invasion of Poland changed everything. Until then, the two communities had no idea they would be murdered together. Deportations to the death camps in the east brought them closer, along with the doomed Polish Jews. In the camps, they were kept apart. “They suffered next to but rarely with each other” (47).The five remaining chapters deal with the postwar efforts to chronicle this destruction and suffering in a way that repairs what Joskowicz believes is the injustice of history in telling the Roma story. Chapter 2 describes how both Jews and Roma faced the same hurdles: trying to rebuild communities, locate relatives who had perished or were still alive, or seeking stolen property. The resources for these painful journeys of discovery were overwhelmingly in the hands of Jewish organizations, and the Roma investigators had no choice but to latch onto them for documentation. This asymmetry brought the two victim cultures closer, even though prewar ideas—and prejudices—were still in place.Chapter 3 shows the increasing efforts of Jewish organizations in the postwar decades to document the destruction of 6 million European Jews, and gradually another story emerged: the details of the second Holocaust “in the margins of the growing archives of Jewish experiences” (102). Gradually, the first Romani archives emerged—recorded stories and interviews that would not receive official state recognition by any government until well into the twenty-first century.In chapter 4, the narrative moves to the postwar courts for what Joskowicz describes as “asymmetrical justice” (103). The three famous trials seeking retribution were the military tribunal at Nuremberg (1945/6), the Eichmann Trial (1961), and the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials (1963–1965). In each case, the Romani genocide was lost in the margins of the prosecutors’ documentation.Eventually, the efforts of Jewish historical professionals began shedding light on the Roma catastrophe, even at a time when scholarship on the Jewish Holocaust was still limited (see chapter 5). The Destiny of Europe’s Gypsies was published in 1973 and was built on the research of the first generation of Jewish scholars of the previous decade.1 The final phase of this fraught relationship of two sets of victims is chronicled in the final chapter. There are still areas of conflict and polarization: “Controversy over the historical place of both genocides continues today” (196). But the study of the Jewish-Romani tragedy during the Nazi era will never be the same; we have this superb work of scholarship to thank

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · The Holocaust · Theology · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Philosophy · Polish-Jewish Holocaust Memory Studies · Religious studies · Romani and Gypsy Studies