Simultaneous Persecution – Shared Experiences? Roma and Jews in the Slovak State

Roma and Jews occupied a similar space in the mindset of the wartime Slovak authorities when they designed persecution policies that targeted these groups. This article explores the various entanglements produced by this persecution, examining not only policy proposals, legal norms, and persecution practices, but also collective and individual experiences and memories. Focusing on several aspects of the wartime experiences of Slovak Jews and Roma (such as displacement, forced labour, and participation in the Slovak Army or the resistance), the authors explore the simultaneity, parallels, separations, and asymmetries in the implementation of particular persecution policies, as well as the different types of entanglements of the local Jewish and Romani communities in them. By examining how Romani and Jewish individuals perceived each others’ persecution, the article emphasizes the complex interwar relationships among members of the two communities, particularly in rural Slovakia, as a key phenomenon that especially shaped the Romani memory of the destruction of the Jews. In this context, the article also discusses the asymmetrical silence regarding the position of local Roma in Jewish testimonies, a silence shared by both Jewish survivors and their interviewers, even in the post-socialist era. Building on its exploration of the asymmetrical dynamics of postwar recognition of Jewish and Romani Holocaust victims, the article also highlights specific initiatives in which the predominance of Jewish recognition and Holocaust memory has facilitated the inclusion of Romani co-sufferers, for example, in certain compensation programmes

Persecution · Poison control · Slovak · Central European national history · Human Factors and Ergonomics · Jewish Identity and Society · Romani and Gypsy Studies