In Nazi Germany, Roma and Sinti individuals faced mass genocide, work camps, and deportations. Despite this, they continued to carve out space for their own existence. Currently, Professor Roseman is participating as the only bid in the United States to the State Diplomacy Lab “Roma Resistance to the Nazis, 1939-1945.” He is a historian of modern Europe, specializing in the Holocaust. Working with him is a group of undergraduate students interested in the unique experience that the Roma and Sinti populations faced in the Holocaust. Peter Benington, a junior studying political science at IU, is one of the student researchers in the lab. He, along with Professor Roseman, sat to talk with IUJUR about the research they have done this past Fall.
Diplomacy labs were started in 2013 by the US Department of State to create projects that allow graduate and undergraduate students to involve themselves in research and inform the department’s responses to contemporary and complex global issues. The State partnered with universities to look at policy issues like human rights and democracy, energy, global health, in different countries. As part of the Jewish Studies program at IU, Professor Roseman applied for a Roma and Sinti study, a population currently seeking restitution in the US. He found Roma and Sinti to be “underrepresented” in terms of their impact and recognition, and hoped this lab could bring this issue into the spotlight.
The Department of State created this project in aims of clarifying a potential uprising in Auschwitz in 1944. Professor Roseman knows that he and the undergraduates cannot answer that question, but they are able to find ways that Roma and Sinti were able to “assert themselves” and fight for their own survival. Banington points towards how the data collected on the Roma is still small, despite moves by German and other governments in the 1980s to give compensation to the community. As it is such an under researched field, Banington said he wants to show what they went through. Professor Roseman found that the Roma and Sinti story has often been “neglected in the discussion” despite the decimation their population went through.
From this research, Dr. Roseman and his team have uncovered a multitude of enlightening facts and history within their area. The scope for acting “varied enormously” depending on the time, individual connections, and geographical location. A diversity of experiences and perspectives remained strong throughout their research. Banington had many notions on the productivity of their research. One thing that largely stood out to him was the familial ties. He found tight communities present in the camps, allowing for “established networks” of Roma and Sinti who were able to rely on each other. As a result of the Roma people’s disparaging treatment within encampments in comparison to their counterparts, they began to revolt and resist imprisonment in unique ways. The Roma and Sinti had their own section in camp, giving them some form of autonomy in comparison to other groups in Auschwitz which aided in their ability to resist uniquely. Coupled with a disparate regard within prison encampments, the Roma people were also threatened with a rather fickle status and abrupt transitions in lifestyle.
The family of a Roma father operating as a soldier for the Nazi Regime was once well sustained and kept, but with an unceremonious change in status, he and his family were removed from that station of succor and relocated to Aushchitz in the span of a week. Roma people as young as ten years old were subjected to treatment and living conditions that resulted in malnourishment, sleep deprivation, and other physical and mental hardships. These individual recognition of accounts are a powerful tool for “piecing together” the past, Banington noted.
As with all research there are difficulties and concerns when approaching studies, especially with sensitive topics such as this area. Ethical concerns arise for Dr. Roseman and his team when gathering information on the Roma people. Benington denotes some discrepancies within testimonies, which he mainly accredited to a “generational divide.” Many individuals are “testifying 30 to 40 years” afterwards or are coming from children or grandchildren, leading to potential mixups in times, numbers, and events. Benington states that to resolve this issue, the research team is very conscious about being careful and taking precautionary steps such as double checking information and weighing individual accounts.
Although it can be hard to say the exact outcomes of Professor Roseman’s diplomacy lab, the research done by these students can have implications in this field of research and in the immediate material responses from the State. The group presented their findings to D.C. via Zoom last December, where they enriched State knowledge on the Roma and Sinti population. It gave them a greater understanding of what happened during Nazi rule, and how best to assert the group’s interests. Depending on their interpretation of how the Roma and Sinti were affected, the Department of State may determine that compensation or policies should be enacted on their behalf. Professor Roseman additionally believes that the findings could encourage other historians to delve further into the ways Roma and Sinti resisted under the Nazis. Currently, non-Roma groups and historians have not done much work on this subject, compared to other groups impacted by the Holocaust. This means that discrepancies and gaps in research are not uncommon in this field, and would benefit greatly from funding and attention.
The group is hoping to go to the State Department in April, however recent events in Washington may provide speed bumps to this process.