“The Gypsies will follow the Jews.” Testimonies of Slovak Roma, 1939–1945. Volume I

This comprehensive collection of more than fifty interviews with Romani eyewitnesses to World War II in Slovakia in Romani and Czech offers a detailed insight into the lives of Romani people in Slovakia and their experiences of the pivotal events of the 20th century. How did the ghettoization and ostracization of Roma disrupt their previously functional, integrated status in the Slovak countryside? What did Romani families experience after being forcibly evicted from their villages? What was life like in labour camps? Did Roma participate in the partisan movement, and who were those who helped the Roma despite the times?

The volume includes an extensive historical introduction and is divided into topics such as “The Ghettoization and Ostracization of the Roma,” “The Roma in the Army,” “The Roma in Labour Camps,” “The Roma beyond the South Moravian Border,” “Relations Between the Roma and the Jews in an Eastern Slovak Village Before World War II and the Impact of the Genocide of Jews on the Roma” and/or “The Roma in the Partisan Movement and in the Slovak National Uprising”.

This comprehensive work is a valuable source of information not only on wartime events but also on the lives of the Roma before and after the war, and not just for history enthusiasts, historians, ethnologists and linguists. It is also a socially significant voice of the Roma living in Slovakia and Moravia before World War II, an expression of a painful chapter in their history that society still insufficiently knows and acknowledges, yet which fundamentally influenced the lives of subsequent generations of Roma.

The narratives and interviews are supplemented by photographic appendices. Published by Triáda.