Quintessential Strangers: The Representation of Romanies and Jews in Some Holocaust Films

Whereas the suffering of the Jews in the Holocaust has been acknowledged on screen, the Romani Porrajmos (the Romani word for the Holocaust) in which more than 250.000 Romanies found their death from Nazi terror, has never been a major topic of any feature film to this day.
This article explores the way in which blinding ethnocentrism is at work even among ethnic minorities with a history of persecution. Not all minorities and not all victims have easy access to the media and consequently to global consciousness and conscience. For the Romani the author argues that this reflects the marginality assigned to them everywhere in the world and in Europe in particular and highlights the notion that for many people nothing has really happened until it has happened on screen.

Citation:
Loshitzky, Y. (2003) ‘Quintessential Strangers: The Representation of Romanies and Jews in Some Holocaust Films’, Framework 44 (2) 57-71.