"Gypsiness," Racial Discourse and Persecution: Balkan Roma during the Second World War.

The debate about the Roma's fate throughout the Second World War has taken on a controversial character in recent years. The focal point of this controversy is whether the Roma's persecution was racially motivated or not. Reflecting upon the Roma's treatment throughout the war period, various scholars regard social-political factors such as the wandering way of life and especially the ascription of criminality as the main reasons for discrimination against and persecution of Roma. Ultimately, the authority most responsible for the crimes against Roma in the "Old Reich" was the Criminal Office. An extreme stance is the thesis of G. Lewy, who denies not only the planned character of the persecution but also its racial/racist intention. Lewy also refutes the comparability of the Roma's fate with that of the Jews. Seemingly, such assertions may be put down to the terminological confusion concerning the concept of race which has characterized the racism debate in the postwar period. Therefore, in order to deal with the question of the Nazis' "imaginary of the Gypsies" and their persecution of them we ought to give some terminological explanations, primarily for the concepts of race, racism and their associative connection with ascribing collective social behaviours, especially their connection to "Gypsiness." Against the background of the current debate, this article will deal primarily with the Roma in the Balkans and the ways they were imagined by the Nazis. In any case the Nazis' ideology and practice can give only a partial explanation of the fate of the Balkan Roma during the Second World War. A crucial and nevertheless scarcely researched issue concerns the Balkan states themselves. This article will focus on only the former aspect, while the latter will be the subject of a further study. This article will emphasize the peculiarities of the perception of "Balkan Gypsies" by Nazis as a collective category , partially by comparison with the common Gypsy stereotype and its diachronic components. This analysis of discourse will be based on an indicative contemporary bibliography, mainly journals that appeared in the Nazi era with the evident goal of supporting and explaining National Socialist politics and ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]