Roma & Traveller

Unter uns, und doch anders? Mit acht bis zwölf Millionen Mitgliedern stellen Roma - früher diskriminierend als 'Zigeuner' bezeichnet - zwar die größte ethnische Minderheit in Europa dar, sind aber dem Großteil der Gesellschaft oft wenig bekannt. Die Sinti als größte Roma-Gruppe in Deutschland stellen den thematischen Schwerpunkt dieses Buches dar. Unsere Kenntnisse über sie sind meist von Stereotypen zwischen Faszination und Vorurteil geprägt. Was wissen wir über sie und ihr Leben? Das Buch gibt im ersten Teil Hintergrundinformationen zur Geschichte und Kultur der Sinti. Im zweiten Teil kommen diese selbst ausführlich in Interviews zu Wort und geben Auskunft über ihr Alltagsleben, ihre Weltsicht, ihre Erfahrungen von Diskriminierung und über die Besonderheiten der Sinti-Kultur. Während neuere Publikationen vorwiegend Verfolgung und Völkermord im Nationalsozialismus sowie den Antiziganismus bzw. die Diskriminierung von der Nachkriegszeit bis zur Gegenwart fokussieren, sollen hier Einblicke in die heutige Lebenswelt deutscher Sinti aus deren Sicht im Vordergrund stehen. Die Gespräche führte die Autorin mit Petra Pau, Frank Reuter, Alexander Diepold, Markus Reinhardt, Krystiane Vajda und anderen.

'A magisterial contribution to the understanding of the cultural position of Romani people in Europe. ... nothing short of astounding' Literary Review<BR><BR>This remarkable book describes a dark side of European history: the rejection of the Roma from their initial arrival in the late Middle Ages to the present day. To Europeans, the Roma appeared to be in complete contradiction with their own culture, because of their mysterious origins, unknown language and way of life. As representatives of an oral culture, for centuries the Roma have left virtually no written records of their own. Their history has been conveyed to us almost exclusively through the distorted images that European cultures project.<BR><BR>Persecuted and shunned, the Roma nonetheless spread out across the continent and became an important, indeed indispensable element in the European imagination. It is impossible to conceive of the culture of Spain, southern France and much of Central Europe without this pervasive Romani influence.<BR><BR>Europe and the Roma brilliantly describes the 'fascination and fear' which have marked Europeans' response to the Romani presence. Countless composers, artists and writers have responded to Romani culture and to fantasies thereof. Their projections onto a group whose illiteracy and marginalization gave it so little direct voice of its own have always been a very uneasy mixture of the inspired, the patronizing and the frighteningly ignorant. The book also shows the link between cultural violence, social discrimination and racist policies that paved the way for the genocide of the Roma.

Half a million European Roma were exterminated by the Nazi regime; many more were subjected to a policy of racial discrimination similar to that suffered by the Jewish people. However, the persecution and torment of Roma in Hitler's Europe has little presence in the history books. The Roma and the Holocaust places the Roma genocide in the context of the widespread violence of the Second World War, while offering an explanation that places it within a broader trajectory of anti-Roma persecution in modern societies.<BR><BR>The book explores the separation and destruction of families, the sterilisation of adults and children, the plunder of property and deprivation of livelihoods, slave labour, medical experiments, the horror of extermination camps and the mass murder that the Romani people were subjected to. María Sierra uses the first section of the book to provide a much-needed critical overview and synthesis of the fragmented research and scholarship in the area that has been conducted in various languages. In the second section, Sierra shines a light the autobiographical accounts of several Roma survivors of the Nazi genocide in order for the voices of the victims who have claimed recognition and rights for the Roma people to be heard. This journey through the memories of Philomena Franz, Ceija Stojka, Lily Van Angeren, Otto Rosenberg, Walter Winter and Ewald Hanstein, in addition to other testimonies, is contextualized within the framework of other Holocaust survivors' memoirs and has been approached from a history of emotions perspective.<BR><BR>With the Romani people having been denied recognition as victims of Nazism after the end of the war, this book crucially helps to bring about agency for the survivors, supporting their struggle for the right to memory in the process.

A Spectator Book of the Year<BR><BR>'Sweeping . . . Poetic . . . Not only readable but also vital' Literary Review<BR><BR>'A terrific storyteller' New York Times<BR><BR>'Exceptional . . . tender and beautifully written' Country Life<BR><BR>The groundbreaking story of Nomadic peoples on the move across history.<BR><BR>Tracing the epic paths of wanderers across twelve thousand years, acclaimed travel writer Anthony Sattin recovers the stories of tribes who lived beyond imperial borders and created their own kingdoms and empires: Scythian, Xiongnu, Persian, Hun, Arab, Mongul, Mughal, Ottoman and others. With their embrace of multiculturalism, respect for nature's rhythms, and need for free movement, wandering peoples brought a glorious cultural flourishing to Eurasia, enabling the Renaissance and changing the human story. This sweeping narrative reconnects us with our deepest mythology, our unrecorded antiquity and our natural world. Nomads is the untold history of civilisation, told through its outsiders.

Man bezeichnete sie als ¿geborene Diebe und Lügner¿, ¿Gefährten des Satans¿, ¿unzähmbare Wilde¿. Gleichzeitig schwärmte man von der ¿schönen Zigeunerin¿ und bewunderte insgeheim das ¿Naturvolk¿ - der Blick auf die Sinti und Roma ist seit 600 Jahren geprägt von Faszination und Verachtung.Klaus-Michael Bogdals brillant recherchiertes Werk untersucht die Darstellung der ¿Zigeuener¿ in der europäischen Literatur und Kunst vom Spätmittelalter bis heute, von Norwegen bis Spanien, von England bis Russland. Auf der Grundlage von unzähligen neuen Quellen, frühen Chroniken, Artefakten sowie Holocaust-Erinnerungen erzählt Bogdal eine epochen- und genreübergreifende Geschichte der Sinti und Roma.