Testimony, Agency, Memory and the Roma Genocide

Building upon growing research on the persecution and genocide perpetrated by the Nazis and their collaborators against Europe's Roma and Sinti populations between 1940 and 1945, this edited volume reveals new findings relating to the genocide, its operation, and the reactions of Romani communities.The case studies span a wide range of Western, Central and Eastern European countries, covering the period in which the genocide of Roma and Sinti took place, the memory of the genocide and its representation since then. The authors uncover and examine new sources that provide previously undocumented details of the unfolding of genocide and responses to it, notably in the context of Poland and France. They also highlight individual stories in other areas such as Czechoslovakia that are illustrative of the broader context of persecution of Roma. With original analysis of Romani memoirs and testimonies, the volume represents a sustained reflection on the importance of including Romani voices when documenting the history of the genocide.This book will be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and specialist researchers working in Romani studies, Holocaust and genocide studies, the Nazi era, memory studies, museum studies and oral history.

About the Author

Barbara Warnock is the Co-Director of The Wiener Holocaust Library. She is co-author of Berlin-London: The Lost Photographs of Gerty Simo n (2019), and Fred Kormis: Sculpting the Twentieth Century (2024). She obtained her doctorate in Austrian history from Birkbeck College, University of London, in 2016.

Clara Dijkstra is the Curator of The Wiener Holocaust Library. She obtained her doctorate in history from the University of Cambridge in 2025. She has held fellowships at the USC Centre for Advanced Genocide Research and the NIOD in Amsterdam, and co-edited Holocaust Letters: Methodologies, Cases and Reflections (2026).