France: Belated recognition of wartime internment of Roma just a first step
10 November 2016
By Radost Zaharieva
The admission by the President Hollande of France’s shameful collaboration in the suffering of Travelling people interned during the Second World War, however belated, is welcome. The best tribute to the survivors of the Romani holocaust would be for the Republic to get serious about combatting anti-Gypsyism in today’s 21st Century France.
In an historic admission seventy years after the closure of the largest internment camp for so-called “nomads”, French President Francoise Hollande stated “The Republic acknowledges the suffering of travelling people who were interned, and admits that it bears “broad responsibility”. He said that his fellow-countrymen had collaborated in a manner that is a source of national shame. “The day has come and this truth must be told, said Mr Hollande during a visit to the camp located in Montreuil-Bellay where more than 2000 nomads were interned during the Second World War. This camp has become emblematic in commemorations of the Romani holocaust in France. In fact between 6,000 and 6,500 people designated as “nomads” were detained in 31 camps established by the state across France during the war, where they were forced to live in appalling conditions, exposed to life-threatening diseases, which claimed the lives of 100 people in Montreuil-Bellay alone. They were interned because the state defined them as a potentially dangerous population. Many “nomads” languished in these camps until 1946.
So who are these “nomads” and why were they targeted by the racist ideology promoted by the Nazi and their collaborators?
From an historical point of view, before this country became known as the birthplace of the modern democratic ideal and the rights of man, France had a long and dark record of repression of Romani people. Historically, France has been home to two main Romani groups, Manushes and Gitans, since the 15th century when they came to France from Eastern Europe searching for a better life. The first expulsions of ‘Gypsies’ occurred under Louis XII at the beginning of the 15th Century, but only in the mid-1660s did anti-Roma measures become intensified. In 1666, Louis XIV decreed that all male “Gypsies” were to be arrested and sent to the galleys without trial; in 1682 the king decreed that male Roma should get life sentences on the galleys, women should be sterilised and children put into poorhouses. If they still did not give up their vagabond life they had to face torture, branding and banishment.
In modern France the emergence of anti-Gypsyism is a long process in which the state played a huge role. In 1895 a government census recorded more than 400,000 itinerant people, 25,000 of whom were ‘nomads’ traveling as groups in caravans. In 1912-13 the authorities enacted new legislation targeting Roma and tracking their movements. The “Loi sur l’exercice des professions ambulantes et la réglementation de la circulation des nomades” (Law on the Exercise of Travelling Occupations and Control of the Movement of Nomads) distinguished three categories: “travelling merchants”, “forains” (itinerant market traders) and “nomads”. Article 3 of the law, defining the category of “nomads”, directly targeted Roma.
From this time onwards, the term ‘nomads’ was officially employed to describe Roma and all other ‘Gypsy’ groups. This new category of nomad effectively inaugurated ethnic profiling, and came many constraints, including the requirement that every nomad aged 13 and over was required to carry an “anthropometric record card.” This ID card was different and distinct from ID documents used by other citizens contained side and full-face photos, fingerprints and information on physical characteristics. This card had to be stamped by a public official, both on arrival and departure from any district, and their vehicles carried a special registration plate. Roma groups had now been set apart from the rest of the population, national and local authorities knew exactly who they were and tracked and contained the movements of all ‘nomads’.
This anthropometric data collection paved the way for Romani groups to be arrested and interned during the Second World War. The decree of April 1940 focusing on national security forbade Roma from travelling within the country and allowed for their detention in camps in both the occupied and unoccupied zones in France. The persecution of Romani groups intensified under the Vichy regime which collaborated with the Nazi Germany during the war. Entire Romani families including young children and old people were rounded up and detained in camps specifically created for nomads and homeless people. In these camps they suffered greatly from diseases and hunger, many were recruited for forced labour. Although there are no records of mass deportation of ‘nomads’ on racial grounds more than 200 “Gypsies” of French origin were murdered in Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Unlike other victims of the occupying forces, the Roma were not systematically liberated after the summer of 1944, and detentions and transfers between nomad camps continued after the liberation. Only in 1946 did the authorities agree to release the Roma unconditionally.
Finally in 2016, the French President admits the role of the Republic in this tragedy. Romani people and Travellers (Gens de voyage) waited for more than 70 years for their wartime sufferings to be officially recognised. This is a step forward to create a common memory to raise awareness within French society, and to prevent such racist crimes in the future. There is still a long way to go before this official recognition goes deeper among the citizens; and a long road ahead in the fight against the racism Roma face in France today. The unsettling sight of Roma actually being denied access to the official commemoration ceremony on the memorial site in Montreuil-Bellay suggests that, beyond this belated official recognition of wartime cruelty and collaboration, much more needs to be done in the Republic to combat anti-Gypsyism today.
